Chapter 56

Rib

Slowly, cautiously, I advance into the room, which grows ever darker with each step. The deep humming of the machine surrounds me now, rack after rack of computers burble and blink their little green eyes. I feel like I am being swallowed by some great beast, and with that thought, the memory of the groaning rotting carcass of that great metal ship comes to mind, followed by a queasy sense of deja vu.
Pushing past the final set of blood flecked plastic curtains, I cannot help but gasp at the vault before me. Like, dude, it's like something out of Star Wars- a large metal gantry shaped like a disc suspended inside an immense stone fissure that disappears into the darkness. Curving around the gantry is a rig with a bajillion little TV monitors, the tangle of cables feeding back to the computers.
And in the center of the platform? Hooo boy. Lemme get closer and I can describe it… just gotta limp over and...
Uhg.
Yep. It looks like one of the many, many autopsy tables I am sure other normal American teenagers didn't have to see pretty much every other week during high school. My life, seriously. No teen should have to break into morgues. That should be a law. You would think that should be illegal or something.
Soooo autopsy tables? Waaay too familiar to this chick. That stainless steel finish with the deep lip to catch all the… spillage... and the drainage holes for… draining… said spillage. Uhg.
Oh great, this Frankenstein's laboratory play set comes with monster included.
It looks very dead, but like I am falling for that. This isn't my first rodeo- well, I guess it is as anything other than the clown, but I know better than to assume just because something looks dead that it won't try to eat me.
But, yeah this thing, this very big, big bad looks way past its expiry date- the flesh… at least the human parts is grey and peeling away from the metal and demon parts revealing maggots feasting. I suppose the air is putrid, so in a twisted way it is probably a good thing that my broken nose has too much blood and gunk jamming it up.
I glance back at the room, checking my corners before examining the body further.
The monster was a giant of a man, brown hair, six foot everything with chiseled bulky muscles. Poor guy worked on his body a lot before, well, someone worked on his body. The demon parts are too familiar from many a comfy book I have slept on- definitely a Polgara demon arm, maybe the main body is M'fashnik… though hard to tell with all the staples and decay.
I check back at the room behind me, all too aware that Riley and his love-in soldier frat boys are working at getting that door open. Nothing yet, but I keep my guard up, fists loose and ready like Giles taught me.
Looking at the monster, I see that the limbs of the monster are detached here and there, at a forearm, at one shoulder, at a knee, which gives me some confidence this thing isn't going to jump me. Cables and tubes of clotted blood vaguely connect the parts, no pulse, no blinking lights. The head is mostly detached too, maggots picking at the green flesh around the vertebrae. From the cranium cables extend up into the shadows above the semi circular tv rig. Clearly "Mr Likes-To-Watch" liked to keep an eye on the monitors as he worked.
Deva Vu creeps over me once more as I look at the robot parts, something all too familiar about the curved plates, the iridescent sheen of the metal. Something from years ago... when... wait... what was it the guards had said? It felt important... it...
I glance back once more and-
"Incredible, isn't it?."
Holy- muhaaaaaaaa I slam back against the hand rail between me and the TV screens, my fists raised.
The General is standing on the opposite side of the gurney, little more than two meters from me- he blocking my exit back into the room. He is little taller than I, tubby, pink faced with thinning ginger hair and dark eyes. His uniform seems three sizes too big for him, with three stars and a large bank of medals half of which I couldn't identify. The fabric is disheveled- stained with dry blood about the chest and cuffs. His hands rest casually on the metal lip of the table- one hand is human, the other most definitely isn't- the flesh is the dark red of roast pork hanging in a Chinatown window.
To my horror, I realise that behind him, where there was a room, is now a solid wall draped in bundles of glossy black cables, and I swear that they are moving, tightening like a snake around its prey.
"His creator called it Adam. Can you imagine? Calling your creation Adam? Such hubris!" He looks at the monster and shakes his head. I did so approve."
His dead, dark eyes fix on me then, and I feel something writhing through my insides, dragging at my awareness.
"I suppose that makes you Eve." He says, a wicked smile crawling over his face.