Chapter 12: The Dead Man
Author's Note: Okay, guys, I'm away this whole weekend. This can be my only update till later next week. But it should hold you, I think... Thanks for all the reviews. Love 'em! And know this story is about half over, so there's lots more comin' up!
Time: about a year later
Contrary to the morbid news reports that had kept the world agape for weeks, Drew Theodore P. Lipsky, aka Dr. Drakken, was not dead. Indeed, he was very much alive.
These days he lived in a cabin in Peak Town, a tiny lake resort at the top of Mount Middleton. The cabin was at the end of a windy cul-de-sac and it was small—"secluded and cozy," as the realtors would say. Two bedrooms, one of them a work space for the various projects he was contracted to do for Global Justice. The master bedroom held a twin-sized bed with worn mismatched sheets, pillow cases and comforter.
At first, GJ had provided Drakken with all necessities. He wasn't allowed to exit the house, not even to stand on the balcony outside his little dining nook's sliding glass door to get some fresh air. The cabin appeared normal on the outside, but every door and window was sealed. Alarms and sensors were placed throughout the house and yard. If he so much as pushed too hard on a pane of glass or touched a doorknob, GJ would know.
He tolerated the fact that every room had cameras that recorded his every move. Repeated jail sentences had already dulled him to the routine embarrassments of incarceration—strip searches, cavity searches, non-private defecation, the pressure of knowing that someone somewhere was watching every move he made, whether it be combing his hair or scratching his privates. That was prison life, and although he despised it, he'd learned to live with it.
After two months, he proved to them that he had no interest in escape. He had nowhere to go, and his health now was such that a life on the road was simply not an option. The last prison attack had left its mark on him. Yes, it wasn't easy to injure Drew Lipsky, but he could be injured, and the last attack had done it. He had fought back too much, so the guard had resorted to using his baton. Liberally. And with great zeal.
So now Drakken needed a cane to walk, as his left knee and ankle had been struck repeatedly in what he snidely referred to as "the state authorized gang bang." He always winced at the memory and his stomach would get queasy. Whoever wanted him dead had finally stooped to the lowest of the low, setting him up for the worst kind of prison assault a man could suffer. He was rather proud that he'd finally fought back, but then again, his attackers had told him that they didn't intend to let him live after their fun. At that point he'd been ready if not willing to say goodbye to a very cruel world.
And then a guard not in on the plan had heard the noise and come to investigate. Drakken was saved after all. But plenty of damage had already been done. Physically hurt and psychologically freaked, his already diminished rational mind had gone spinning down the toilet. He'd spent almost nine months at a GJ-monitored mental hospital. When he'd gotten out, functional for the most part but still not entirely up to speed, Dr. Director had come up with this plan, the only plan that might save his life.
But she wouldn't fix his doggone knee. Neither GJ nor the government would pay for the required surgery. Since all his assets had been confiscated long ago, Drakken couldn't pay for surgery either. The ankle seemed to have healed on its own and was fairly functional now, if not very flexible anymore, but the knee was wrecked. It hurt constantly and gave out on him routinely. He walked with a limp that drove him crazy, but he kept reminding himself that it was better than being lame and in a wheelchair.
He could do without the cane at times by using walls and furniture as supports as needed. Yes, he fell when the knee suddenly gave out, and sometimes those falls hurt like hell, but GJ didn't care as long as he managed to get up again. He understood their point of view even if he thought it was barbaric. He was still a prisoner, a world-class villain, and his knee problem only made it easier for GJ to contain him.
So time went by, with Drakken obeying every rule put down by GJ and working seven days a week on assigned projects. He knew that Dr. Director was surprised at his cooperation, but he didn't expect her to loosen the strings as soon as she did. Apparently she was curious to see how well he would behave if given some leeway. So now he could go out on his balcony and enjoy the mountain air—and risk a sixty-foot drop down the mountainside below if he changed his mind about escape. It was a moot point anyway. GJ had chipped him in such a way that he couldn't remove the tiny tracking device without digging into his own shoulder. He had no interest in even trying.
Soon GJ stopped providing him necessities and gave him a small—very small—paycheck every week. They provided him with an old car that had satellite tracking and a kill switch. It would simply shut down if he drove beyond a restricted area or into certain neighborhoods where he wasn't allowed. If he tried to tamper with the control devices in any way, the car would signal GJ and he'd be back in prison so fast his head would spin.
GJ instructed Drakken to use a holographic imaging device when he left the house to shop. He had invented the device himself some time ago, but never used it because he used to enjoy his evil blue image. Now when he left the house he appeared as a normal-skinned man with short brown hair, brown eyes, and no scar. The imager made his nose a bit larger, his chin a bit smaller, his physique a bit bulkier as if he were overweight. That part he didn't appreciate, but he certainly didn't look like the evil villain Dr. Drakken, and that was what mattered.
He was ordered to shop at bulk warehouse stores and to stock up on nonperishables so that he wouldn't need to leave his house for weeks at a time, except to get fresh fruit and vegetables at the little local store. Even then, he was ordered never to speak to the locals and to buy his items and immediately leave. He could make this trip only once a week.
He was given so little money that all purchases except food were made at thrift shops. He bought his clothes at the Salvation Army store, along with most of his furnishings and anything of entertainment value like old books and magazines. He was not allowed to get a library card but was given a TV set that received one local broadcast channel, one movie channel and, after he had practically begged them, the History Channel.
He'd never lived so fugally in his life. He grumbled at the worn state of his sheets and linens. He had to force himself into clothes that were already worn, torn, colorless, frail. But GJ only wanted him dressed. They didn't care how.
He hated how low he had fallen, but he knew he was lucky. Even this was better than being in jail. He'd be dead by now, or messed up beyond all help. Every night he endured at least one nightmare about his attacks, so he began to sleep in odd little bursts, collapsing when exhaustion hit him and otherwise trying to stay awake no matter what time it was. He sometimes wondered if there was still the other shoe out there, ready to drop when he least expected it. Whoever had wanted him dead probably still wanted him dead, right? What he didn't know was that GJ, in cooperation with prison authorities, had given the news media false reports about the third attack. Drakken was unaware that, as far as the outside world was concerned, he was dead. Dr. Director never told him because she wanted him to remain on the alert at all times, for his own good.
Perhaps the hardest part of his house arrest was that he was always alone. He knew that two GJ agents alternated monitoring the feed from his surveillance cameras, but they were way back at GJ HQ. He had no one to talk to in the house except for Dr. Director during the few times she appeared on the special monitor installed for direction communications. True, he had often worked alone in his lairs way back when, but the fact that henchmen had been available if he'd really wanted company made that aloneness different than this. And true, he had always talked to himself, grumbling and grousing or humming or singing as he worked.
But after awhile he found himself having long philosophical discussions with his houseplants, or with bugs that appeared in his kitchen, usually scuttling around the sugar container that he kept out on the counter for his coffee. He caught the bugs, put them in a jar and kept them as pets, givings them names and praising them for their mysterious ability to infiltrate a house so securely contained that every tiniest crack was no doubt sealed and set with sensors. The average inmate in any high security prison had at least one person to talk to, even if it was only a guard. Drakken had no one. He feared he might be losing his very last marble when he started to answer himself, changing his voice to "speak" for his plant and bug pals.
Dr. Director was apparently alarmed by this development, too, because in a move that astonished Drakken, she soon provided him with lab equipment. At first he'd only worked on repairs to small GJ devices that could be accomplished with simple tools. It was just to keep him busy, he knew that. But when he began his bug menagerie and started to chat at length with inanimate objects, agents appeared at the door with a van full of lab supplies. The spare bedroom in his house was reinforced, rewired and soundproofed, and a special generator—of his own design, he noticed wryly—was installed to provide the unusual amounts of energy the equipment would need—all off the grid, of course. Drakken was then given assignments to invent devices, usually involving laser technology or robotics, his specialties.
He was delighted by this, but also suspicious. Dr. Director seemed to be playing some kind of game with him, giving him more and more freedoms just to see what he'd do. She began to grant him access to potentially dangerous materials in the lab to see if he would misuse them. It was as if she were daring him to return to villainy so she could get rid of him, permanently, by simply returning him to jail.
So he kept reassuring her that his criminal life was over. The thing that surprised both Dr. Director and himself was the fact that he meant it. He had been stabbed, beaten, raped—he'd had enough. And still, Dr. Director placed openings in his path now and then so that he could prove to her that he was sincere. One mistake, she continually warned him, and he'd be back in jail. Drakken almost admired her for such ruthlessness. Once he told her that she would make one hell of a supervillain, to which she had scowled and cut off her transmission.
So now, while confined to his little house, Drakken became a full-fledged scientist for GJ. He designed devices for them, he repaired others, he wrote and debugged specialized computer programs—whatever they told him to do. Every once in a while he was given "problem" projects involving space technology, and he often wondered if he was actually helping James Possible down at the Middleton Space Lab. Dr. Director never told him more than he needed to know about his work, but the idea intrigued him.
What he truly came to despise were the new visits by GJ psychiatrist, Dr. Yvonne Turance. As much as he craved company, a tenacious shrink wasn't the answer. He didn't want psychiatric help. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing wrong with him anymore. He'd let his bugs go and had stopped talking to inanimate objects, for the most part, now that he had something interesting to do. And yes, he had once called himself a mad scientist, but he'd always used the term as in "mad science," not a declaration that he himself was nuts (though he knew that everyone else presumed it).
Dr. Turance was a tall blonde of about 40 years, a pretty but physically capable no-nonsense woman who was clearly used to dealing with hard cases. From the time he got his lab gear, she started showing up four times a week.
Drakken had refused to speak during their first four sessions, but she had neither cajoled him nor shown frustration. He sat there on his worn couch in his dingy little livingroom, so she just sat there in an equally worn recliner, every once in a while trying to prompt him with a question or provocative statement. He would cross his arms and childishly turn away as if this would actually make her go away. Four sessions and four hours had thus passed.
It was during their fifth session that she finally tricked him into talking. After twenty minutes of mutual silence, she had casually asked, "Do you miss Shego, Mr. Lipsky?"
He scowled. He hated that she called him Mr. Lipsky. He wanted to be called Doctor, dammit! Plus he hated his real name, but she had made it clear that Dr. Drakken no longer existed. At the mention of Shego, he felt his face grow hot. "Don't ever say that name to me," he'd growled. His voice was even more gravelly than usual since he spoke so little.
Dr. Turance had smiled. "Ah, so you can talk."
That had stoked Drakken's temper, which always made his mouth go faster than his brain. "Of course I can talk! I just don't want to talk to you! And I will not talk about Shego! End of subject!"
Dr. Turance tiled her head just a bit to one side. "You loved her, didn't you?"
Drakken knew that an expression of furious betrayal was blossoming on his face. He couldn't help it. "She was out there, free and clear, while I was getting the crap beaten out of me in prison. She never came to get me, and I know she knew what was happening. If a thing is worth knowing, Shego knows it. She—" He finally managed to shut his mouth. "Get out of here."
Dr. Turance shrugged. "I'm sorry, I can't. There's forty more minutes to this session."
"And just what does dear Dr. Director want you to accomplish with these sessions?" Drakken hissed at her. "You think I haven't already had psychiatrists try to twist me into their pathetically lame versions of normalcy? I am what I am—evil! And I like it! Yet I've sworn obedience to GJ! Everything that I am, everything that's ever mattered to me, is gone! Isn't that enough for you people? Can't you just leave me alone!"
"We want to help you."
"Oh, for Christ's sake…"
Dr. Turance seemed amused. "I thought you were Jewish."
Drakken sneered at her. "Actually, I'm more of an atheist these days."
"Because you feel that God has abandoned you?"
Drakken crossed his arms and looked away, refusing to talk anymore.
"You can put on your I'm-not-here act all you want, Mr. Lipsky. I won't leave until time is up, and I will come back on Thursday."
He didn't respond.
Dr. Turance sighed. "May I bother you for a glass of water?"
Drakken merely sniffed.
She stood up and headed for the little kitchen, which was entirely visible from the livingroom. GJ had chosen a house for Drakken with an open floor plan so that there was, quite literally, no place to hide from the surveillance cameras. "I don't know where you keep your glasses," she finally said.
He clenched his teeth, wishing he had a death ray so he could zap her out of his life. "Cabinet to the right of the sink." He heard the cabinet creak open, then the faucet turn on then off.
Dr. Turance returned to her chair holding a glass with a chip out of one edge. "You can drink right from the tap up here in the mountains," she commented brightly. "Down in Middleton I have to buy Sparkletts."
Whoop, Drakken thought.
She took a sip, then said, "Has it ever occurred to you, Mr. Lipsky, that GJ could have just let you die in prison?"
They practically did, Drakken thought bitterly.
When he said nothing aloud, Dr. Turance continued, "Dr. Director chose to go to the trouble to set up this house for you to save your life. In other words, she sees that you have value. I don't think you believe yourself worth anything anymore. That's why you're so angry. You said it yourself—everything you cared about is gone. I suspect that includes your own sense of self-worth. I wouldn't find that surprising, considering what's happened to you."
Drakken frowned, an expression he could take to such an extreme that his whole face seemed to turn dark as a thundercloud. Any mention of his prison attacks, the tiniest reminder of them, made him furious. He grunted, a sound of subdued anger, and felt disgusted by Turance's transparent technique. She was trying to make him talk and was being rather cruel and ham-handed about it.
Yet she continued. "If you don't let the anger out, it's going to—"
"Eat me up inside," he snarked before he realized it.
"Exactly."
Drakken had a thought. "All right. You want to chit-chat? Then let's play Lector's game." He turned on the couch so that he was squarely facing her. "Quid pro quo, Doctor. How about it?"
Her eyebrows shot up. "Am I the newbie FBI agent or the cannibalistic maniac?"
"Pick one," Drakken said. "They're equally lame."
That caught her interest. "You think Dr. Lector is lame?"
"One dimensional," Drakken countered. "Fun to watch, sure, but no real goal. Eat your victims. Interesting MO, but all he gets out of it is a nice meal. There's nothing to be gained in the long run."
"Very well," said Turance, "I'll play your game if I get to go first. Answer me this: what's to be gained in the long run?"
Drakken curled his lip in a nasty snarl. "You want me to say world domination."
"Do I?"
"Gah! Do you have to be so damned obvious?"
"I'm not being obvious, Mr. Lipsky. World domination has been your goal for the past, what—decade?"
Drakken leaned back on the couch. "Any ultimate goal, if it is indeed a worthy goal, must be something that will last. For me, that's technology. Yes, I aspire to world domination, but I use my inventions to do it. That is my true goal—domination using my own creations. I'm an inventor more than anything else."
"What about all your…what did Dr. Director say you called it...oh yes, your outsourcing?"
"Nyarrrgh! Okay fine, I stole some equipment and parts. Can't invent every little thing every time, especially when your supplies and work space are constantly blown up by a goody-goody cheerleader." Drakken thumped his booted feet up on the coffee table, crossing his ankles as well as his arms. He knew that, psychologically speaking, he had just taken a classic defensive posture, but he didn't care. He felt defensive. Let the psych-nut have her fun. "What I have invented will affect technology for generations," he spat, "and that's something little Kimberly Ann Possible can't stop."
"How so?"
Drakken grinned. It was not a pleasant grin and he knew it. "I've advanced laser technology more than anyone else on the planet, not that I'll ever get the credit. And my cloning techniques—"
"Your synthodrones? Mr. Lipsky—"
"Doctor! Doctor Drakken!"
"Your name is Drew Lipsky, and you don't have a PhD."
That hit a nerve that make Drakken steaming mad. He leaped to his feet, shouting out, "Like I need some damned university full of stuffed shirts to teach me! I've taught myself through the years, and I've learned through hard experience, not classroom drudgery! I don't need a damned sheepskin to tell me I'm a genius! If it mattered that much to me, I'd have bought a diploma online years ago!"
He calmed down and sat again, clutching his knee, which felt like somebody had poked a nail into it. He shouldn't have moved so quickly to stand up—he'd knocked the joint out of place again. He wanted to go get a pain pill, but he refused to let Miss Braniac know he was in that much pain. "Like I said," he continued, reluctantly letting go of his knee and forcing his voice to sound normal, "I've advanced laser and cloning technology. My synths advanced to the point where they could display distinct personalities. They could adapt to environmental changes and learn from their experiences. I've build robots capable of independent thought. Other scientists are still struggling in all those areas, and I've already paved the way. But will anybody acknowledge my contributions? Of course not, because I'm a villain." Now he started to get steamed up again. "Take James Possible down there at his beloved Space Center. Fool thinks he's a genius rocket scientist, but every rocket he's ever invented was created with the support of the entire Space Center! I've designed rockets by myself in my own facilities! I've traveled in space using my own craft! I've invented generators, engines, computers, robot brains…" He stopped again, finally realizing that perhaps Dr. Turance wasn't so transparent after all. She not only had him talking, she had him ranting. He folded his arms and clamped his mouth shut.
"Quid pro quo," she said after a moment. "You just told me something. Now it's my turn. Ask me a question."
He said nothing.
"Back to the silent treatment?"
Drakken shut his eyes.
"I won't go away no matter how hard you try to make me."
"I don't care what you do."
"Then what's wrong?"
"…I'm tired."
"No, you're in pain because you hurt your knee by standing up too fast. But more than that, you're angry."
A good twenty seconds passed during which Drakken had to use every ounce of willpower to not leap off the couch, bad knee or no bad knee, and attack the woman. She was right. He was angry, incredibly angry. He had been boiling furious for months. He was so furious that his heart was thumping like a bass drum, and his body hurt with the effort to keep from smashing and destroying every object in his crappy little house. He wanted to shriek his fury to the skies.
He wanted to cry even more, cry like a girl, and part of him didn't care that he would look like a fool if he did. After all this time the tears were so locked up, pushed so far back inside his soul that they hurt like a terrible wound. Yet he held them back out of spite. No one was going to see Dr. Drakken's pain. It wasn't their business. They had no right. If he couldn't have privacy on the outside, he was determined to make his own privacy inside himself where nobody could see no matter how hard they tried. Even if it killed him.
Because of this he started to tremble. He clenched his teeth and his fists, trying to hold it in. He had never personally committed a violent act on an innocent person before, but for just that moment, he truly was afraid that he might. For the first time, his control was slipping. He had no idea what he might do, but he knew that men could do awful things without meaning to, just because of pressure.
"Here."
Drakken didn't move.
"Take it, Doctor Drakken."
That made him turn to look at her. She was holding out a flask. "Drink some before you explode."
"What?" was all he could say.
"You're about to detonate. Drink." Her voice took on a commanding tone. "Now!"
So startled and so wound up that he couldn't think of anything else to do, Drakken grabbed the flask and took a good swig. It worked. His insides relaxed as the warmth of brandy spread.
He took another swig, a longer one, and then slowly handed the flask back, trying to keep his hand from shaking. "That was illegal," he finally told her.
Dr. Yvonne Turance tucked the flask back in the inside pocket of her jacket. "I'm not just any psychiatrist, Doctor. Global Justice has given me leeway to do what I need to do for my patients. You feel better, don't you?"
Drakken drew in a long shuddering breath. Yes, he felt better. Not good, but he felt as if a potential Cat 5 had just passed him by. "Thank you," he said.
"You're welcome." She glanced at her watch. "I'd better go."
Drakken glanced at the wall clock, one of those big clunky things usually used in grade school classrooms—another Salvation Army special. "You have eight minutes left, Dr. Turance," he declared coldly.
She rose from her chair. "So I do. What do you suggest we do with the time?"
The question caught him off guard. "How should I know? Why don't you just leave early?"
She reached out and took his right hand. He didn't expect this and so did nothing to stop her. "You say you're an evil genius," she said, patting his hand. "Prove it."
He snatched his hand back. Was this some tricky part of her therapy plan, to beat down his barriers with liquor and subtle questions and little physical touches? He didn't like to be touched. "I don't know what you're talking about," he snapped.
"How about this," she said. "Your files say you've raised quite a few pets. What were they?"
Drakken thought a moment. He missed having pets. Hell, at this point he would have been happy to have Commodore Puddles back, vicious pee-crazy dog that he'd been. "Not your average house pets," he finally said. "Sharks, piranha, squid, stingrays…I've raised several breeds of snakes and tarantulas for their venom, but those plans never came to fruition…" He looked at her to see if this information was what she meant.
She was watching him with interest. "Go on."
"I bred a new kind of carrot—"
She smiled slightly. "Carrot? As far as I know, carrots are not pets. Nor are they evil."
"Ah, but this one was especially hearty, very hard to kill. I bred it so I could see if it survived after exposure to a new poisonous rabbit I engineered. I was going to destroy certain agricultural targets to alter world economics, but I got stuck figuring out how to keep the rabbits from over breeding and thus destroying non-target plants, which would have obliterated just about every green growing thing on the continent, not to mention other continents if the rodents managed to travel." He couldn't help but grin. "I made them unusually intelligent."
Dr. Turance eyed him. "Where are they now?"
"The rabbits? Oh, they figured out how to pick their cage locks and almost took over the lair. You have no idea how scary a rabbit can be." He shivered at the memory. "Shego had to…well, let's just say we ate well during the following weeks."
"...Oh."
Drakken had to think back to his earlier experimentation days. "I also raised lab mice and rats, of course. Ants, bees, scorpions, wasps, praying mantis—but those were for anatomical study. See, I made robots using designs based on certain insect anatomy. But I didn't get far…damned Kim Possible…" He paused. "Why do you want to know all this? If you've got my files, why ask?"
Dr. Yvonne Turance grinned. "Your files aren't complete. Time's up. Goodbye, Mr. Lipsky. See you Thursday."
Drakken frowned as she left. He'd just given her more info for his files that would only work against him. Okay, she's good, he thought. Dammit.
