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World 8-3: Science Will Break Your Heart
Bowser woke with a gasp and immediately wished he could go back under. Reality resumed ramming its dick through one ear hole and out the other. Everything hurt, the shattered pottery of his head most of all. They'd strapped him belly down and spread-eagle over an examining table, its steel surface still chilly against his scales.
Hard to see much with his neck yoked down tight, but what he could glimpse of the joint was a small room crowded with cabinets and chests. The stale air was bitter with the ammonia stench of strong cleaning chemicals, the harsh stuff used in places that got real messy. Powered tools gleamed in wall brackets, several rows of them on the wall before him. All clean and well maintained, their cutting edges scored by frequent use and resharpening.
While much of the room was out of sight, its purpose was an obvious truth as hard and cutting as the diamond-tipped saw mounted right before his eyes.
Whichever way his interrogator hurt him first, Bowser hoped it would at least distract from the fault lines of agony grinding open in his skull.
Footsteps approached. A gangly shadow crept up the wall, and an old man followed it into Bowser's field of view. The geezer looked him over with eyes grossly enlarged under fishbowl spectacles. He rubbed blue-veined hands together, each caress striking up a papery rasp.
"Oh dear, oh dear," lamented Professor Elvin Gadd. "If only someone had warned me in advance that today I would have the pleasure of dissecting a rare specimen of Koopatis Rex, I might have commissioned the construction of a special table. One which would receive your carapace so that I could lay you supine and perform this examination by the book. Ah, I'll simply have to take the shell off first. A true pity."
Professor Gadd had made his international reputation by being exiled for multiple kingdoms for practicing the blackest of sciences. Gadd's origins were even more obscure than Peach's, yet his crimes of vivisecting his "subjects" and other experiments too sickening and perverted to speak of in detail he had racked up a body count in the hundreds. Rejected and hunted by even the most corrupt and brutal regimes, Gadd had found a willing partner in Queen Peach. Rumor had it the man had developed a way to harvest the very spirit of both the living and the dead.
Gadd clucked and gibbered to himself as he took a circular bone saw down from its hooks on the wall. Its blade was bigger than the stooped ancient's head. Gadd switched the saw on for a few seconds, listening to the whine of the motor at work before nodding with satisfaction.
Every sight and sound of the old man magnified the throbbing in Bowser's skull. He fought the urge to vomit.
"Sorry, old chap. You deserve better."
"That's all right, old man," rasped Bowser. "When it's your turn, I'll make sure your dying is slow and thorough."
Gadd nodded, his pallid prune face utterly sincere. "Fair enough."
He set the bone saw down on a handcart and there came the clattering of rattled dinnerware. Gadd rolled the cart over to the table, revealing a tray of over a dozen surgical tools, steel polished to a brilliant shine. Fine tools for more delicate work.
A gouty, decrepit Toad charged into view. "You'll not perform functions of science until he's answered Her Majesty's questions!" Toadsworth, Peach's chamberlain, stomped his foot on the floor. Frustrated when the foot stamping produced little noise, he took to arm flailing instead. These hysterics in turn flipped his monocle off his nose, sending it rolling around the floor in ever-tightening circles. "Bother!"
Turning red, the chamberlain shook a finger in Gadd's squinting face. "We do not need a repeat of what happened last time we entrusted you with an interrogation. The queen does not tolerate repeated mistakes!"
Toadsworth snatched up the monocle and bustled from the room. Somewhere behind Bowser, an opened door let in a clanging racket from outside before slamming closed, sealing the lab in relative quiet once more.
The slump of Gadd's spine grew more severe. He moved around the table, inspecting the manacles holding Bowser's wrists and ankles and tail in place, then set up a voice recorder and readied a camera. Most ominous of all was the vacuum cleaner he set against the wall. It was an ordinary wheeled model with a red case and a flexible hose ending in a standard wide mouth attachment. The only visible customization made by Gadd were backpack straps.
A weariness slowed the professor's every movement. An air of injured dignity hung over him.
"Why so glum, chief?" asked Bowser. He was going to be here a while. Might as well play for sympathy.
"The queen once took a great interest in my discoveries. Criminy! So it always ends with laymen. The instant a project's focus wanders a micron from the purely practical, or the work takes on the slightest whiff of the theoretical, poof goes the interest. POOF goes the money." Gadd threw apart clasped hands to demonstrate just how rapidly a patron's favor could evaporate.
Bowser licked dry lips with a dry tongue. "You know, my kingdom has a lively science grants program. 'Get the dough into the hands that know best how to use it,' that's our motto."
Gadd only twisted his vulture neck, giving his head a sepulchral shake. His skin was gray between the liver spots. "Tempting and much appreciated, but I must refuse. My old heart has been broken too many times before. That, and nothing's worse than having Peach as an enemy."
"Too true," croaked Bowser.
"You understand." Gadd nodded, his single lock of stringy gray hair bobbing in echo. "It was kingly of you to make the offer. Now." He switched on the camera and announced the date and time. Roughly two hours had passed since The Toad had captured Team Marinara.
"Let's get shucking."
Bowser fought through the migraine and the bleary filter of grease head trauma smeared over the world, frantic for something he could say that would stall the professor, give him time to escape… somehow. "Think you could give me something for this headache?"
"I would if I wasn't about to vivisection you, old chap. I take no pleasure in inflicting pain. Unnecessarily."
E. Gadd hefted the bone saw, his reed-thin frame teetering under its weight. "You see, there's a wealth of information coded into an organism's pain response. And I've often wondered if your species has any shock response at all, especially when compared to, let's say, a Toad. There aren't many of your breed around, so I must make the maximum use of every specimen that comes to hand. Even so," and he sighed a dusty, rattling sigh, "despite my immaculate procedures, valuable data will be lost today. If only I had more samples!"
The saw jerked to life, the high drone of its motor drilling into Bowser's ears and teeth, into the part of him that struggled so hard now to remain calm.
Gadd moved on down the table, passing beyond the edge of Bowser's peripheral vision.
"I'm serious about giving you money. I have tons of it!"
Another all too calm part of Bowser detached from himself to observe himself. This was the watchdog a king must set upon himself to keep in check his comportment. He saw eyes rolling, scales shivering, nostrils flaring with shallow breaths. He heard a panicky tenor piercing his deep gravely voice. Disgraceful. This aloof fraction was ashamed for the whole.
"Sorry, can't hear you," shouted Gadd. "This blasted thing is so loud. Now, I am about to make a lateral incision along the ventral seam between the upper and lower carapace."
Gadd was dictating to the video camera, Bowser realized. The old man had greater faith in its microphone than his own ears.
Though he couldn't feel the wind coming off the blade through his shell, Bowser swore the heat of its motor bled through. He imagined the growing warmth from the friction of the saw teeth as they gnawed all the way through to the softer flesh below.
Inspiration struck him before the saw did.
"Questions!" Bowser screamed. "You were supposed to ask me questions!"
The whine slowed to a whisper, and was still.
"Eh? Oh, blast it all!" The professor remained out of sight, but it was easy to picture Gadd rubbing his sunken chin in deep thought and readjusting his thick spectacles. E. Gadd reminded Bowser of an older, human Iggy. A resemblance that was in no way comforting.
"Ah!"
"What is it?" asked Bowser. A stupid hope rang in his voice.
"With that audio amalgamatilizer thingamabob I spelled up last month, I can fabricate the Q and A session by sampling and remingling our voices from the vivisection recordings. Why, you've given me plenty to work with already, just from this one conversation. Perfect! Good news, old chap, you won't have to endure interrogation after all!"
"That sounds like a lotta extra work. Be easier to just interview me now."
"Certainly! But I fancy the challenge. As one ages, it's important to try new things."
"But, but... Peach. The questions..."
"Oh, the queries were asinine. The same sort of questions she asks all her prisoners: where are your military installations; troop numbers; alliances; buried gold? And so on. I could gather such intel, and much more besides, with my instruments. If she'd only have a little faith in me. Another good reason to fake our interview, I suppose. With only a fistful of false leads to go on, the queen will once more have to rely on my ingenuity. Now, where were we? Yes, the carapace seam."
The saw started up its whining.
Talking had failed. And the bonds that held him were too strong, with no give by which to steal a smidgen of leverage to pry them open. Despair ate a hole inside Bowser. The more he tried to ignore it, deny its existence, the bigger it grew until it swallowed everything inside him.
It was a terror to move, for some reason which escaped identification. A greater terror still to freeze in place, and so he began trashing against the manacles. Panting heavy, no longer caring what unkoopaly noises piped out between his clenched jaws. His wrists began bleeding.
But he was not so far gone that he failed to hear the squeal of the saw blade as it began cutting him in half. Down there, where he couldn't crane his neck to see, a tugging. Rather than warmth, a spreading chill. After two seconds, the pain arrived. A deepening line of hideous, red pain.
The professor grunted, and the saw stopped biting. A horrible shriek of metal on metal, and then the motor sputtered off. Bowser lay there, taking rapid breaths, certain he would begin to scream and never be able to stop screaming once the saw resumed its work.
"Boss."
Bowser strained his gaze upwards. Koops' concerned face peered down into his. If this was what cracking under pressure was like, then he approved. Bowser began laughing, higher and higher, shriller and shriller.
"You alright, boss?"
"Never better!" Bowser noted he was frothing. Didn't care. "Hey, captain. Mind getting me off this butcher's slab?"
Koops looked like he wanted to weep with relief. "Give me a second."
He stepped out of sight. And didn't come back.
Gadd chuckled and the bone saw began to shriek. Bowser crushed his eyes closed against the waking dream. Swallowed the urge to gibber and scream.
The manacles released their hold on his bruised limbs with the sweetest noise he'd ever heard. Bowser rolled off the table, claws scrabbling over the floor tiles in his hurry to stand upright. E. Gadd sprawled face down on the floor. Watery blood puddled beneath him, trickling down a grated drain in the floor where Bowser's own would've sluiced away.
For a moment, it looked like the sad lump of old gray clothes and old gray flesh quivered with returning life. More waking nightmares. Had to get out of this place.
Bowser and Koops stepped carefully around the widening slick of gore. Having heard the many legends of the deadly doctor, they were keen to avoid exposure to his bodily fluids.
"Sir, you're bleeding."
The cut in his shell's seam was not long or wide, but it ran deep. Blood trickled out in a steady dribble, coloring in a line of acid pain. "I've had worse," he croaked.
Koops forced his king to sit still for a half-minute so he could clean and bandage the laceration. Bowser, feeling dizzy, graciously allowed this. Despite the challenges of their surroundings, Koops got the hole plugged. The captain had always been proud of his field medic training.
Gadd's cramped lab seemed in constant motion with a slow rocking. Bowser glared at the swaying room, a rolling he no longer felt confident attributing to nausea. The various implements of grim scientific inquiry shifted in their brackets, leaning one way then another. And the old man's corpse refused to stay still, the head wobbling on a kinked buzzard neck to the sway of the room. An ugly suspicion formed in his scrambled mind. "Your team was supposed to infiltrate the airship. What are you doing here?"
"We did, Boss. Got aboard all right, and started planting the charges. They were waiting for us. Marsh spawn of the Third Echelon. We blundered right into their black spore clouds and puff ball traps. I clamped a bandanna over my snout and ran. Not sure how I avoided breathing in a lethal dose. I survived by playing dead, my forte," said Koops, voice quiet, somber. "While they were shoving our corpses overboard, I slipped away. It's like I stumbled into a winning streak in hell's own casino. Got lucky guessing which deck they were keeping you."
"Yeah, lucky." Bowser froze, struck by something like sea-sickness. "Wait a sec'. Overboard? Deck?"
The wound dressing complete, Koops looked up and blinked twice. "Oh. I thought you would've realized. We're on the airship now, boss. Took me the better part of an hour to work my way below decks. Stealth infiltration's a lot harder than it looks in the movies, especially when there are no ventilation ducts to work with."
Bowser shook his head, the forgotten headache reasserting itself with renewed vengeance. "Whatever. Grab me some pain relievers and let's breakout Luigi if he's still alive. Then we'll visit Peach and treat her to a manicure, for her face."
Outside of the lab, their sterile surroundings of steel and ceramic tile gave over to the resinous grime of stripped pine logs and black iron rivets. Whatever fresh forest fragrance the raw timber might have once lent the airship's confines, the below-decks now stank of tar, smoke, and unwashed mushrooms. The two Toads assigned to guard Gadd's workshop lay dead, slumped against the walls as if napping. Bowser made a mental note to increase Koops' salary.
Across the sloshing bilge (where the foul water came from when the ship plied the skies, not the seas, was a question Bowser considered for an instant and abandoned just as quickly), the other half of the orlop deck contained four holding cells. Two were occupied.
A cone of flickering yellow light streamed out from one cell's window grill. With eyes adjusted to the gloom of the airship's bowls, Bowser squinted against the glare to peek inside. Torches blazed from sconces mounted on every wall. The Toads had wanted this cell well lit. Hung from the ceiling, the prisoner resembled a beehive woven from iron chains. Alongside the tang of metal, Bowser smelt Luigi beneath the double-thick links.
Koops had helped himself to the guard's key ring and it was a simple matter to free Luigi from his cell and chains while Bowser kept watch. Mario's brother gave them a curt nod of thanks, and took off running down the hall, not pausing long enough to wipe the dried blood from his face. Before Koops could shout for him to stop, Luigi was around a corner and gone.
Bowser took his captain by the shoulder, holding him back. "Let him go. He doesn't answer to us."
"But—"
"He's after his brother and his hammer. Whichever he finds first, I pity the chump who gets in his way. C'mon, let's see who's in this other cell."
"What makes you think anyone's in there?"
The door had no window, peep hole, or food slot. Bowser tried the door. Locked.
"That. And I heard something. Hard to tell what. Not exactly a voice. That whispering noise clothing makes when it moves, kinda."
Koops tried one key after another until he found the correct one. All the while, the cell's occupant stayed quiet aside from the occasional rustle of fabric. Bowser kept to the side, hidden and ready for trouble in case the enemy of their enemy was also their enemy. Of all the possible prisoners he imagined, nothing matched what they found inside.
The lock released with the crash of a bear trap snapping closed. The iron-braced door swung out, unsealing an unlit cell, black as any moonless night. The stench of a filled latrine bucket and unwashed skin hit them a second later. Nothing moved in that unbroken darkness. Only the creaking of stressed wood and the knocking of distant engines broke a silence that strengthened with every passing moment.
Bowser swallowed. "Anyone home? You're free to leave. Well, as free as you can be a mile up in the air, on a flying boat swarming with murderous fungus. You want to help us fight our way out, you're welcome to join in."
Nothing. Bowser looked to his captain. Koops blew air through his beak and shrugged.
"OK. We're going. Good luck."
As one they turned to leave. Koops yelled the foulest curse he knew. Bowser jumped several inches off the ground, arms flailing up like startled birds taking flight before he could consciously lock them into a combat ready stance.
A woman stood in the orlop passageway. Through a mask of grime she favored them with a smile. A ghoul's smile. All Bowser's sphincters pinched tight.
In a voice as soft as a flower petal's caress, as light as floating pollen, she spoke. "Hi. I'm Daisy. Thank you for freeing me from that nasty cell. May I have the pleasure of knowing your names, gentle Koopas?"
Bowser puffed out his chest. When in doubt, swagger. "You're joking. Everyone knows who I am. Bowser, King of the Koopas and don't you forget it."
Daisy turned her cold gaze upon Koops, a fever warm smile still stretching her dirty lips. Koops eventually found his voice.
"Uh, hi. I'm Koops. Captain Koops. Pleased to meet you." He rubbed the back of his neck. He blushed. He touched the bandage on his beak. Then he moved on to trying not to squirm.
"Thank you again for freeing me from that hellish prison, King Bowser and Captain Koops. As you've no doubt noticed, I've been the guest of the queen for quite some time." Daisy looked down at the greasy rags that might once have been a caramel silk ballroom gown. She stopped smiling and Bowser could suddenly breathe easier.
A series of bloodcurdling screams soaked through the deck overhead. The stampede of many boots pummeled the planks like a drum. Impossible to tell if the crazed beat was a march into battle or panicked retreat. Luigi's good work had commenced.
"It would seem Luigi is free as well," said Daisy, gazing upwards and tapping her lips with a fingertip.
"You know him?" asked Koops.
Her eyes widened. "Oh, yesss. A fascinating man. So sensitive. So sorrowful." More screams filtered down. Something heavy, perhaps a skull, thumped hard against the deck, over and over, shaking loose wood shavings to sprinkle down upon their heads. "So furious."
Bowser knew they should be hurrying on, yet Daisy's voice entranced him. And there was something he wanted to confirm. "I think I know who you are. Princess Daisy, of Sarasaland?"
Daisy curtsied. "Just so. Though the proper title is now Empress. The rest of my family has passed into the afterlife." She said this the same way she spoke of every other subject, in a breathy whisper tinged with some emotion Bowser could not define. Wonder? Amusement? Rapture?
It was well known that, of all her adversaries, the only rival reputed to make Queen Peach Toadstool visually nervous was Princess Daisy. People spoke in whispers of Daisy and her dynasty behind closed doors, invoking their names no more than strictly necessary. She had disappeared months ago, and the common consensus was that the truant princess held her court inside the bellies of the Cheep-Cheeps prowling Peach's moat.
"Tell me, does my empire remain sovereign?"
"Yes, but not under your dynasty. Peach leaves Sarasaland alone only because Tatanga seized control in your absence and elected himself Dictator," said Koops.
The captain had a dreamy cast to his face that Bowser liked not one bit. He cleared his throat.
"It's been great getting to know you, Your Grace, but Peach will get lonely without my fist to keep her face company." Doing his best to sound casual, Bowser popped the all-important question. "You want in on that action?"
"Do. I. Ever. You—may I call you Bowser? Yes, you practically read my mind. I would love very much to join Your Majesty in a rampage of uninhibited slaughter. Shall we?"
Empress Daisy gestured for them to follow and began sauntering down the passageway, only a trace of wobble in her gait from the many weeks of deprivation and hardship. Bowser and Koops exchanged nervous glances and followed.