Chet's eyes snapped open, one hand going to his ear. He wasn't sure if the voice had been his abilities or his dream, and stared at the wall, trying to think. He rarely heard his own voice (and he was sure that it had been his voice) in his glimpses of the future, a fact which made him decide that it must have been just a dream. He relaxed, gathering his thoughts, and noting with a fresh relief that his arms and shoulders weren't incredibly stiff and tense, something that often resulted from sleeping in a straitjacket.
He blinked and shifted, the mattress creaking under him. Suddenly the wall was replaced by the ceiling for his contemplated-staring/thinking. Well, more like the makeshift hammock-type structure that had been poorly rigged above him. Star, it appeared had been busy during the night. What detail wasn't blotted out by the crisscrossing rope was hidden by Star's sleeping body, except for a small, super-bright point of light that seemed to come from his hands and shine onto his face, making him look rather eerie.
Chet looked at this light curiously, realizing that it did not match the rest of the place. He frowned and stood up on the mattress, examining it.
It turned out to be the light-torch from Mereii's pocket.
"Damn you, John!"
Blinking again, he stared hard at the torch, the pit of his stomach suddenly twisting painfully. He remembered.
Star had been fascinated by the light. The only way he could have gotten it would have been if someone gave it to him, or he got it himself. It seemed unlikely that Star would go ruffling through the coat for himself, and Kat and Otto had fallen asleep almost immediately from the roof. He hadn't done it, and he was pretty sure that Escher hadn't woken up.
Which left one person.
"Octavius, WAKE UP! GET JOHN!" yelled Chet.
Now, Otto had not had a decent night's sleep in ages, and although his body awoke, his mind remained in the half-awoken state most commonly occupied by students in their first class at eight in the morning, after going to bed at two way earlier that morning.
His mechanical children, however, were not human, and suffered no such problem. One of them snapped out across the room towards John's face, and a second to the top of the laptop.
It was as if the sheer volume of events that crowded into the next few seconds actually slowed them down, stretching the time out to fit themselves in. Chet turned as he spoke, and beheld a sight that made him want to absolutely puke. Mereii was bunched over his laptop, the screen paling his face and his fingers typing away. The precog nearly kicked himself when he cocked his ears and realized that if he had been focused before, he could easily have heard the clickclickclick of fingers on keys.
The next second, however, the first claw hit the laptop lid from the back. John yelped, jerking backwards, and yelled several words that would have caused quite a few mothers-with-children to hit him with bricks.
But Chet's eye was already super-focused on the psychologist's hand, which just before the tentacle had struck had been extending across the keyboard towards that time-honoured final command; ENTER. It was such a close thing, that it was actually more the slamming of the cover on Mereii's fingers that pressed that final key down.
"AGHH!" shouted Mereii, trying to pull his hand back from the two layers of laptop that now neatly sandwiched it. "SHIT!"
The actuator pressed harder on the cover, but then let up and snatched John's wrist in its cold claws as Otto turned, now very definitely awake and glaring down at Mereii in such a way that should definitely have caused instant death-by-sight.
The shouting had woken Kat, Escher and Star, and it was the first two who rushed over, "Damn you, John!" Kat hissed, clearly considering the idea of giving him another black eye (again) and possibly kicking him in the face. She didn't, mainly because Chet shoved her out of his way and flipped up the lid of the laptop.
He was met by a small, rectangular box with round edges in the middle of a blue Windows screen. The box had a smiley face in the left edge and the rest of it was occupied by a single sentence that gave him more chills then he'd probably had for most of his life.
THIS ACTION HAS BEEN COMPLETED.
Under it was an OK' button. No cancel.
John, even in his current position, began to laugh, and looked directly at Otto with the eyes of a slightly demented man. "I win, Octavius," he said, smiling so smugly. "I win."
.perhaps more then slightly.
Otto stared at John right now, the man looked more like a patient in a mental ward then a caretaker. Though, on second thoughts, he did look like a caretaker. Smug like one, anyway.
Father, may we snap his wrist?
No.
The actuators mentally whined, but he ignored them and glared at the doctor, dragging him by the wrist as far as the chain would allow. He hadn't seen whatever had made Chet pale, but whatever it was, it must have been pretty bad.
He was, however, shaken out of this line of thinking by what happened next.
"Stealer!" shouted Star, diving from his ropy hammock onto John, belly-flop style. The man oof'ed, going down in surprise, and the actuator clinging to Mereii's wrist let go with a surprised shrwriieeek.
"Star!" Kat jumped for her friend, who seemed intent on beating the living snot out of John. He'd already granted the man another thump in the eye and a bloody nose, and the psychologist's feeble attempts to bat him away with only a hand and a half weren't working too well at all.
"Star!" she shouted again, grabbing the boy by his arm and yanking him off Mereii. "Star, listen to me!" She grabbed his other arm and pulled him to face her, speaking fiercely. "What happened? What did he do to you?"
Star blinked at her for several long seconds before suddenly hugging her tightly. "He's a stupid lying stealer! He told me it was just a box! But it's a glowing box with the alphabet on it and I think he did something bad and he lied to me!"
"Why did he" She caught sight of the laptop, then turned back to where it had been the previous night. Chet climbed into Star's hammock and retrieved a small, silver rod. Sighing, he hopped back out.
"I think this is why." He held up the optical torch. Star looked at it longingly, then hugged Kat again, even tighter.
"I'm sorry, Kitty!" he wailed. "I didn't do what you told me to do and I helped the stealer cause I really wanted the shiny thing and I didn't mean for anything bad to happen and I'm sorrrryyy!"
Kat frowned at the torch, then at John. Chet, who was pinching the bridge of his nose with his eyes screwed shut, explained. "Star wanted thisbecause it's so..." rolling his eyes, "shiny. I think he traded the laptop for it, albeit unknowingly."
"That's right, Karos," Mereii spat, nursing his bloody nose as the other black eye blossomed to match the first. "Your idiot friend thought it was just a box. Stupid boy."
"Don't talk about Star like that," said Kat, fiercely. "I should let him beat the shit out of you."
Otto, on the other hand, didn't care much about how Mereii had come to get hold of the laptop. One actuator broke the chain, one grabbed John's wrist and a third his neck, dragging the man towards him off the floor. "What did you do, Mereii?" he snarled between gritted teeth. The two currently unoccupied claws hissed over his shoulders threateningly, and Mereii couldn't help attempting to inch back a bit. He failed quite badly, mainly because there was an actuator around his throat.
"It doesn't matter, Octavius," he said, sneering anyway. The actuator around his throat clenched more, and he gagged, but didn't speak. Instead, he actually managed a wheezy, half-choked chuckle. Otto was taken aback, and a sort of foreboding worry starting to percolate through the anger in his expression. It wasn't a good sign, that Mereii should be so calm. He had rightfully pegged the psychologist as a bully and therefore, at the first sign of danger, an utter coward, but now he could see no fear in those somewhat inflamed grey eyes. Something was horribly wrong.
Behind him, Kat had raced over to the laptop and was now clicking frantically, trying to get some kind of useful response. "Otto, help me, what do I do with this thing?"
"It's too late, Katarina," said Mereii, with chilling levity. "You'd be better offpersuading him to let go of me, before he makes it any worse for himself."
The laptop bleeped. This small noise, and Kat's exclamation that went with it, was a lot more attention-grabbing than it should have been alongside the enraged chitter of the actuators and Mereii's gagging. Otto turned his head just in time to see the screen clear and flash a new message.
DISPLAY RECENTLY UPLOADED FILES
Then, as if some electronic dam had burst inside the machine, the screen started to flood with pages and pages of images. Every second, it refreshed, and every second a new page appeared - dark blue backgrounds filled with minute white lines, sketches, schematics, paragraphs of mind-bendingly intricate code that went on for pages, accompanied by figures and cross-section views, and all traced in the same neat unvarying white. Mostly the data was indecipherable, instructions and equations and the strange city-map shapes of circuit diagrams, but here and there were drawings that depicted the structure of parts, of complex joints, of snakelike segments and angular claws
Otto stood stock still, watching the scrolling, redrawing pages, the expression and color slowly draining from his features. After maybe half a minute, the two lower tentacles' claws parted slightly, and Mereii fell out of their grip and hit the floor.
"Whatis that?" said Escher, who, like everyone else, was gazing at the endless, paging displays. "Th-they look like"
"Blueprints, actually," said Mereii, loftily, getting to his feet and straightening his rather rumpled shirt. "I have something of a talent when it comes to computers, but unfortunately I didn't quite have the, hah, expert knowledge I needed to be able to make something to contain thosethings." He flicked a hand at the nearest tentacle, stepping around Otto, who still seemed rooted to the spot. "Luckily, it wasn't too difficult to acquire this copy once I found out where it was kept. The one and only copy in existence, isn't that right, Octavius?"
Otto's eyes barely flicked away from the screen from a second. He wasn't so much staring at it any more as through it, into some other dimension visible only to him. Whatever he was seeing there, it sure as hell wasn't good. "That's right."
"Aheh" Mereii laughed like a winning card sharp. "Not any more."
The tentacled doctor turned, finally, transferring his stare onto his enemy. Kat got a clearer look at him as he did so, and was shocked. Pale and blank-faced, Otto looked like some invisible force had come along and punched the stuffing out of him. He had looked better, she thought with a jolt, during a few of his more severe space-outs.
Her ex-employer continued, and what he had to say soon pushed all such thoughts from Kat's mind.
"Eight terabytes of data, Octavius. Every last line of code, every single page of instructions. Everything needed to reproduce those abominations welded to your spine, right down to the last screw and wire. Thorough, weren't you? It may well have taken a genius to create them, but to copy themI'm guessing far less." He smiled. "I've uploaded them into one of my lessaccessible accounts. In twelve hours time, unless I deactivate it, they'll be released onto twelve separate encrypted servers, and from there to mirrors all around the world."
He padded forwards and leaned into Otto's face. As tall as he was, Otto still had perhaps two inches on him, plus the added intimidation of the claws that hovered perpetually at their host's sides, but Mereii seemed completely unfazed. If control was a drug, the psychologist was acting like an addict who had just found a lifetime's supply. "So, it's up to you. Either you give up, return to the asylum with me, and allow me to reacquaint your little pets with their collarsor by tomorrow morning every would-be supervillain the world over will be able to build themselves a set of their very own. Sound good to you, Doctor?"
For a long time, nothing moved, besides, perhaps, the air. It seemed to be vibrating with a sort of horrified fear, and especially around the two girls who were staring at both doctors. Then, his actuators dipping with a quartet of confused, angry hisses, Otto spoke.
"All right, Mereii," he said, quietly. "You win."
"WHAT?" It took Kat and Escher a moment to realise that they'd spoken at the same time, and with pretty much the same tone.
Otto, however, wasn't in any mood to appreciate this impressive spontaneous synchronisation. From the moment when he had recognised the blueprints, it had felt like a chunk had been torn out of his soul, a sickening sensation of seeing the way the future would go. Would have to go.
When he had finished the blueprints, so long ago now, they had been the beginning of the end for him - if he'd only known it - and so it seemed that now, they had reappeared to begin his end again. For a moment he half-heartedly cursed the actuators, then realized it wasn't their fault. He was at fault here, and they had nothing to do with it well, mostly, at least. He mentally kicked himself about eight times for keeping the blueprints at all. He should have destroyed them, but he hadn't, and he knew that it was the actuators that had kept him from destroying the plans for once and for all. It was in their nature to want everything to be a scientific certainty; they had wanted to be sure they'd have a backup plan of their own build, just in case the one they carried in their memory became corrupted in any way. And he'd agreed, because it was practical, but also (he realised now) because he was still proud of his work.
But nowwhat choice did he have? He couldn't let what had happened to him happen to anyone else, anyone else who thought they could control itthe sort of power that they gave himit wasn't a power he could give to anyone else. No one could bear the strength he bore. Not even him.
He took a long breath and spoke without looking at the two girls, his eyes downcast. "Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. I can't allow there to be even one more set of actuators. I can't risk those blueprints falling into evil hands."
Escher gave a shaky snort. "Y-yeah, butyou can't just giveyou're kidding, right?"
The tentacled doctor gave her a pained, please-don't-make-this-worse look, then turned back to Mereii. "You win. Do whatever you wanton one condition."
"You're hardly in any position to negotiate." Mereii raised an eyebrow.
Otto continued as if he hadn't spoken. "Leave these two alone," he said, indicating Chet and Star, who were still standing like statues behind him. "The same goes for Kat and Escher."
"Hmm" Mereii folded his arms, thought for a second, then jerked his head in agreement. "Fine. What's two more screwballs to this city? Anyway, I'm sure I'll be more than occupied enough with your, uh, treatment." He smiled, lazily. "I've got to hand it to you, Octavius. I have to admit I didn't think anyone in their right mind would give a damn about you once I got hold of you." He hiked a dismissive thumb at Kat and Escher. "But they're really convinced, aren't they? They really think you're worth all this. However you managed it, it's a nice trick."
This was too much for Escher. "He's worth ten of you, you twisted sonofabitch." she snarled, and darted forwards before Kat or Chet could grab her. She took far too long to reach Mereii, even with the speed her anger gave her, and the startled doctor had all the time in the world to react. The laptop was still in his grip, and with a upslanting, double-handed swipe, he hit her with it. Hard, under the jaw.
She collapsed at his feet. Otto made a wordless sound and lunged instinctively, the tentacles gaping and hissing like acid. But his adversary swung round to face him, and the sight of the still-raised laptop reminded him forcibly of the threat it represented. Mereii saw his expression freeze, and smirked.
"Anyone else feel like being heroic?"he said. "No? How about you, Kat?"
"Mereii, I swear," ground Kat, who was herself fighting against Chet's restraining grip on her arm, "I goddamn guarantee you you're going to pay for this."
"I'll bet." Mereii sounded amused, and a touch bored. "You know, you really have to watch that temper, Kat. I'm sure Otto understands that he should count himself lucky that I'm not going to ship you and your friends to the police right now." He turned to Otto. "As to whether I ever will,well, you're going to have a lot of time to wonder about that. Now, shall we?'
He stepped disdainfully over Escher's body, indicating the door. Otto threw him a look of flat murder and stooped to press his fingertips gently against the girl's neck, closing his eyes and breathing out in sheer silent relief at the steady rhythm. The lower actuators curled up and slid themselves under her shoulders and knees as he lifted them, then rose to support her while he straightened up and walked across the room.
"She's all right," he told Kat, while the tentacles arranged Escher carefully on the sofa. "When she comes round, perhaps you can tell her that it's not always a good idea to throw yourself at the bad guy." He attempted a smile, trying to keep his voice light, trying to make this forced parting easier. "Thank you, Kat. I'm not sure you realize how much you two did for me."
"Otto" Kat hadn't realised how close she was to tears until she spoke, a thick clot of helplessness the consistency of dough rising in her throat. "Otto, you can't let him do this, you can't, there has to be something, some way-"
"Listen." His interruption was abrupt, but his voice was gentle and charged with urgency. "You have to do something for me, all right? One more thing. Don't interfere." He tried to smile. "I know how hard that is for you, but there's so much more at stake here. If those blueprints were ever releasedI owe it to everyone, everyone who'd suffer, who'd die, to do this." Whickering in soft metallic distress, an actuator dipped and brushed the back of his hand. He raised it to touch the tarnished metal, running his palm over the claw in a distracted gesture of mutual reassurance. "And they agree."
"But-"
"I'll keep my word. Don't give him any excuse to break his."
"But you know what he's going to do to you," Kat said miserably. "He'll-"
"I know. I'll survive. Or a part of me will, perhaps-" At this Kat finally gave up and breathed in one shaky sob, a tear tracing her cheek and halting at the corner of her mouth. Instinct lifted Otto's hands awkwardly to her shoulders, his own voice cracking, trying to hearten her despite his own sadness.
"-Oh, Kat, come on, please don't. I don't want to leave you like this."
"I don't want you to leave, tentacle-boy." She swallowed and looked straight up into his face, anger taking over, eyes blazing. "This isn't- we- we can't let him win!"
The doctor sighed, and let go of her shoulders. "He's won already," he said. "All we can do is lose with dignity. Promise me, Katarina."
Kat shook her head fiercely.
"Promise me."
She looked at him for a long moment.
"Okay," she said, finally. "Okay."
Otto gave her a sad smile, and then turned away. Mereii stepped back warily as he walked towards him, pulling the door open.
"You first," he said. Otto barely glanced at him; lowering his head, he walked through the doorway into the lobby beyond. Mereii followed. A final, volatile rattle from the actuators, the creak and slamof the door, and then they were gone.
For one, long, horrible minute, none of the three conscious people who remained in the apartment said anything. Then Kat, who had up till then been standing staring white-faced at the door like someone who has just received a needle through their frontal lobes, abruptly recovered enough to comment on what had just happened. In her own, highly intellectually incisive, style.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHFUCKINGODDAMNIT!" she screamed, picked up the nearest hand-sized object (a paperback copy of Edward de Bono's Lateral Thinking, fourth edition), and hurled it across the room, where it slammed against the door with a surprisingly heavy whud. Chet winced. His expression made it plain that, for once, he was not finding anything amusing about the situation, ironically or otherwise.
"Uh, Kat-"
"The bastard! The fuckingI'm gonna kill him! I'm gonna-"
"KAT!" Chet yelled. Kat stopped, breathing hard, glaring at him. He continued, tentatively, choosing his words with care in case he said something that turned him into the next target. The next book on the pile by Kat's side was a hardback, and not a short volume either.
"Whatdo we do now?"
Behind him, Star pulled himself up on the back of the sofa where Escher was lying. Balancing on the top, he leaned down and poked her in the forehead with an index finger. She groaned, shifted, then opened her eyes, gingerly feeling the bruising graze on her jaw.
"Uhhhwhat the hell just happened? Mymy head feels like someone used it to score a field goal." The girl looked up, then around the room, her expression travelling fast into stomach-sinking realisation. "Ohshit. Where's Otto?"
"Probably halfway back to Sporlock by now," ground Kat. "And, no, Chet, I don't have an idea in hell what we do! You should know! Why don't you tell us?"
Chet blinked, then looked down. "Idon't know," he muttered, awkwardly. "II can't see."
"So you can see when you're in Sporlock, when we need to escape, when you need to creep John out, but you can't see when we need to rescue Otto! Are you doing this on purpose, to get him back for when you had to carry John?"
Chet stared at her for a long time. "Of course not! I wouldn't take revenge on someone by giving them to him!"
She shot him an accusing glare, reaching down to the hardcover. Chet did not need his vision to guess what could happen with that book (and most likely his head) if he didn't pull something out of a hat. Something soon. Having no want to have any more bruises (he had enough from the needlemarks) he nearly spat out; "What do you think I am, some sort of psycho!"
"Yeah!" she replied, hefting the book with a grunt. "I think you're a green-eyed freak who tells the future to get us all in trouble!"
Chet blinked at her, stunned more then momentarily, "What do you mean?"
"You told us to take the laptop!" She pointed a finger at him viciously as she spoke, dropping the book, "And you told us to take him! And I bet if there had been a freaking gun, you would have told us to take that too! What the hell, Chet? What'd'you think you're trying to pull?"
"Do you think I can control what I see?" he replied, voice chilly, eyes narrowing. "Do you think I even want to see the goddamn future?" He approached her, slinking in a dangerous sort of way, but Kat didn't step backwards. "You think I ever appreciated the taunts and the psychiatric care - even from real professionals? I'm only human, and sticks and stones do break my bones, once in a while!" Now he was nearly shouting. "You think I MEANT to do this!"
"I have no idea, Chet!" Kat, on the other hand, was most certainly shouting. "I just know that my friend would still be okay and here if it wasn't for you and your damn vision'! How the hell am I supposed to trust you after that?"
Chet's eyes were now tight, laser slits. "I thought I could trust you." he said. "I thought you were different from the rest of those small-minded, sceptical idiots. I thought I could trust you to understand and not blame me the second something happened that I couldn't predict! Obviously I thought wrong!"
"Oh yeah? You know, I'm starting to think you really are just as crazy as your file says!"
"And you're just as blind as-"
"HEY!" screamed a voice. Both Kat and Chet shut up out of sheer surprise, and turned. Escher stood up, pale with fury, the bruise showing up starkly. She was an angry blot of purple and white, and looking absolutely furious. "Look at you two! You're fighting while Mereii is doing god-knows-what to Otto! Would you both shut up! Jesus! We need to DO SOMETHING, not yell at each other!"
"That so-called precog' over there" Kat pointed a vehement finger, as if Escher couldn't tell herself, "got us into this mess and he can't get us damn out!"
"Stop it! Stop it stop it stop it!"
The three of them looked at Star, who was firmly seated back on his hammock with his arms crossed. "Stop being all stupid and fighty and everyone listen to me." He hopped out of the hammock and stood up very tall, fists at his sides, and although this only made him look more childish, it definitely gathered all their attention. He cleared his throat and spoke. "We hafta get Kitty's friend back," he said. "The stealer stole him again, so we have to get him back. He made all those three-pointers, and I followed them, and they found Kitty for me, so he's definitely not a stealer. He's" Star wrinkled his nose, thinking hard. "he's like the absolutely positively definitely backwards of a stealer. I like him."
A sober silence followed this pronouncement. Then Kat sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, sitting heavily down on the nearest couch. "Ahh, jeez. You're right, both of you. All the time we're fighting each other, we're just doing exactly what that bastard wants us to do."
"Well, you did promise Otto you'd stay out of it," said Chet, but he didn't look so angry any more, either.
"You did?" said Escher, blinking. Kat frowned.
"I kind of did"
"Don't be a silly kitty cat," said Star, matter-of-factly. "You promised you wouldn't interfere. Rescuing's not interfereering. Rescuing's rescuing."
"Well said," Chet grinned, then became serious. "Kat, I know my advice's done more harm than good, but I was trying to help, regardless of how it looks. I did try to warn youthe way I see things happening isn't always the same as the way that they're supposed to happen." He sighed. "You know, the first time I remember doing itseeing the futureI was sixteen. In an exam - I hadn't revised, I was terrified. And then I looked at my paper and II saw it already filled in. Of course, you can probably imagine how I felt." He snorted. "I felt like God had lent me his own personal getting-out-of-trouble hotline. I scribbled down everything i saw, finished in ten minutes flat."
"Wow," said Escher.
Chet looked at her. "Wow nothing. When we got our grades back, well, that was when I learned that there's a difference between knowing what answers you're going to writeand knowing the right answers."
There was a pause.
"Ow," said Kat.
"Yes," said Chet. "And, you know, maybe the reason I can't see anything nowis because there are too many ways it could go."
For a moment, the room was full of the sound of four people contemplating this. Then Kat stood up.
"No." she said. "No, there aren't. There is one way that this is going to go. We are going to get in my car," she crossed the room, "we are going to get over to Sporlock," she grabbed her coat off the table and dug in the pocket, "and we are going to bust Otto out of there. By any means necessary." Extracting her keyring, she turned in the apartment's lobby doorway and brandished it at the other three. Her voice was level and deadly serious, but the warlike flame sparkling in her violet eyes would have made a platoon of Amazons look like a knitting circle by comparison. "Who's with me?"
For a moment, no one moved. Then Star crouched and bounded onto Kat, who replied promptly with an noise that sounded oddly like a mouse being jumped on by an amused, stalking cat.
"Gyeaaaaaa-Star!"
She took several steps back, staggering with the weight of the (at least physically) fully grown man. Her back gave out with his weight (it was more then he looked, that was for sure) and she fell backwards onto Chet's mattress, dazed.
"I wanna come, Kitty!" he proclaimed, sitting on her stomach happily and looking down at her. "Can I? Can I? Pleeeeeease?"
"Yes, Star," she squeaked as Chet's quiet snickering and Escher's giggles surrounded them. "Now can you please get off of me?"
"Oh, sorry Kitty!"
"Well, that's one," She sat up, rubbing her stomach. Star was now seated back on his hammock, looking at her and nearly bouncing around the room.
Chet stopped snickering, looked at Star, and went over to sit down on his mattress next to Kat. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and grinned. "Well, I got us into this mess, and I better get us out. Isn't that what you said?"
"Hey, that's not fair." Kat mumbled, and looked away.
"Relax, I'm joining your little crusade," he smirked. "And anyway, you need me."
"You're a bit fat liar." She grinned at him. "But I guess you can come."
"You're so kind," he said, sarcastically. Kat smirked, and looked at Escher. The two said nothing, the silence punctuated only by the squeaky noises the bed made - Star had gotten bored of his hammock and had instead started to rediscover the joys of jumping on the bed.
"For Otto?" Escher asked, offering Kat's keys.
Kat snatched them, and smirked.
"Mereii is going down."
It would have been difficult to thoroughly explain all of the separate thoughts that passed through Otto's mind, as he walked slowly down the fifth-floor corridor of Sporlock Asylum. Mostly, he felt numb, as if some part of him was already deeply anaesthetised. Through the window at the corridor's far end, he could see that the grey pre-dawn was starting to lighten, and guessed that it must be around six o'clock.
It is five point forty-nine point sixteen AM. The actuator's voices were fast, eager to correct him. He smiled and half-nodded without changing pace.
Thank you.
Their anxiousness was transparent, and touching, in a way. It made him remember that moment, all those years ago, when he had first heard them tentatively reason that their true purpose was to help him. achieve his goals, whatever they might be. They were his creations, and they had learned so much, and even now, when there was a definite possibility that they would never talk to their host again, they were still trying to fit as much helpful information into the time still left to them. As annoying as their micro-accurate data sometimes was, it was comforting.
Meanwhile, Mereii walked in front of him, currently busy with the catches on a large case that he'd picked up from his office. Despite his rather battered appearance, the psychologist evidently felt very much back in control of the situation; that much was clear from his stride and the curt ordering manner with which he had addressed Otto on the journey.
He thinks he can do anything he wants, Otto thought, concentrating momentarily in order to see from the perspective of the upper right actuator, which was open and watching the man. And he's right. Why do I feel so calm?
Because you are convinced that you have taken the right course, murmured the voices.
I'm surprised you're allowing me to do this.
We can see no alternatives that do not carry an unacceptable risk. We understand the likely consequences of our schematics being released. We do not thinkthat we wish for that to happen.
Otto couldn't help a wry huff of a laugh. You've picked a fine time to develop morality.
Mereii, in front of him, caught the laugh and smiled to himself. "I hope the voices are amusing, Octavius," he said. "Because they won't be there for long."
A threatening rattle from the actuators, and Otto's brow wrinkled. John didn't seem to care, and both the doctor and his actuators knew that he was damn right not to. Otto had had a very good idea of what was in the heavy-looking case, and as Mereii stopped in front of one of the corridor's many reinforced white doors, the thought made him start to feel that same separation-panic all over again.
Mereii swiped his keycard through the slot alongside the door, which opened with that familiar, hated hssss, then stepped aside, indicating the cell beyond. "Your new home," he said, acerbically. "I'm afraid it's a little smaller than the other one, but on the other hand it does have a door."
Otto didn't even bother to glare at the psychologist, settling instead for walking past him, over the threshold, and into the cell. Apart from the size, it was pretty much identical to the one he had been held in for the last year; just as featureless, just as stark white. The tentacles clicked their distress, and he realised his own heart was pounding. He forced himself to get a grip. It wouldn't do to lose it now, not when there was so much at stake.
Father... the voices whimpered, coiling up against him. We're scared.
So am I.
One of his hands curled over one of the pitted claws as he continued, his thoughts even and smooth, to hide the tremble. Even though I can't hear you, and you won't be able to hear me... I want you to know that I am here. And I don't want you to stop talking to me, either, whether I hear you or not. And if there's any chance that you can override your restraints, I want you to try.
We will.
A sharp click behind him interrupted his thoughts. Mereii had followed him into the room, and was now removing four new-looking inhibitor collars from the case. He picked up one, the blue light flickering on as he activated it, and then with a rapid movement he reached up and locked it around the upper left actuator. The arm jerked back, startled, then shuddered and dropped to the padded floor with a hollow clank. Caught off guard, Otto gasped and lost his balance, the weight of the neutralized actuator yanking him down onto his knees.
Mereii laughed, stepping forwards to lock the second collar onto the upper right smart arm. The claw pulled away and snapped open, menacingly, making him flinch. "Hold it still," he ordered.
Let him.
Father
Please.
The actuator lowered, and Mereii cuffed it, smirking. "You know, this little adventure's made it pretty clear that I can't afford to keep you even as lucid as you were," he said, offhandedly, moving to the lower actuators. "Purely in the name of security, of course. Don't worry, thoughlike you told Kat; I'm sure some part of your mind will be awake enough to watch what's happening to you."
"Mereii" Otto shuddered, the chorus in his head now halved, which reduced the volume but not the panic. Movement was becoming a conscious difficulty, and not just because of the immobilized arms. He forced his head to lift, trying to keep the shifting form of the psychologist in focus. He would be damned, he had resolved flatly, before he'd beg the man, but now the choking fear made him try reason, while he still could. "Think about this. Youthis is inhuman-"
"You're inhuman, Octavius. I'mjust doing my job," said Mereii, calmly, picking up the final inhibitor collar. "You're a monster, and a murderer, and no matter how you judge the morality of my actions, I will never be anything like you." He smiled, an expression which even at its most triumphantly serene still carried that sour ashen undercurrent. "If this is anything, it's justice."
Otto gave up at this, and closed his eyes. He heard a fourth locking snap, and felt the projected numbness spread up the entirety of his back, the clamour of the final actuator falling abruptly silent. He kept his eyes shut, lowering his head, fighting the buzzing dizziness that was rising in its place.
Straightening up, Mereii watched the kneeling doctor for a few moments. He looked a little disappointed, possibly due to his patient's lack of reaction.
"I'll be back shortly," he said. "Thenwe'll see if we can't take your mind off your situation."
Otto said nothing. He kept focusing on the inside of his eyelids, waiting. There was a further silence, then an exasperated snort, footsteps, and a closing hssss.
"I know it's a tight fit," Kat said as Chet pushed his way into the backseat of her Focus, next to Star.
"Kitty, I'm squished," Star squeaked, thoroughly jammed between Chet and the side of the car. Both Star and Chet were fairly lanky individuals, but the massive pile of papers that was there - heaps of old research papers about various interesting psychology.things - seemed to take up the space of a man of probably three hundred pounds, leaving minimal space for the remaining two. Chet, who was on the edge, took his time ruffling through her papers. He had been the last out of the apartment, and now his shuffling concealed a certain something that he had grabbed last-minute, and was now trying to hide in a pocket.
Escher craned her head back to look at Chet, who was busy with the papers. She cleared her throat loudly to get his attention. "If you see anything, Chet, tell us."
Chet looked up. "I see a big purple blob," he said, truthfully. Kat snerked as she pulled out, and nearly floored it.
