The first coughing fit came on Roger without warning. He'd been about to make a typical acerbic comment, and instead found himself barely able to keep from dropping his coffee cup until the spasm subsided. Dorothy moved to steady him and put a hand on his forehead.
"Roger, your body temperature is elevated 3.2 degrees above normal," she said, before turning to face Norman. "I believe it would be appropriate to summon a physician."
"Quite right," Norman agreed, and exited the bedroom to perform this task.
"Now where were we?" Roger said, putting down the cup and reaching over to Dorothy once more. But she pushed him with firm android strength back toward the pillows as another coughing fit began.
"You are not well. You need rest," she stated, in a voice that brooked no disagreement.
Roger cursed under his breath. He wanted to tell her that there were rules in his house, and one of them was that when he woke up with women in skin-tight rubber suits in his bed . . . . But he suddenly felt dizzy and weak, and didn't resist as she pulled the blanket back over him and tucked him in.
Norman re-entered the room.
"Dr. Carter will be here shortly," the butler said. "Miss Dorothy, if you'd like a chance to shower and change into your more customary clothing . . . . Also, I think it might be wise to run a diagnostic and make sure that your systems weren't damaged in the battle."
Dorothy nodded and left the room, with a reluctant look back at Roger, who was coughing again. She didn't notice that Norman watched her, frowning slightly, as she did so.
[-]
"Colonel Dastun, Sir," Lieutenant Johnson timidly tapped Dan Dastun on the shoulder to rouse him from where he'd been sleeping in his office chair. The younger policeman had to jump back as Dastun went from being unconscious to springing up alert with the instant reflexes of a combat-trained veteran.
"What is it?" Dastun growled.
"Colonel, all sectors of Domes 1 through 7 are reporting in to say that their situations are under control and the riots have stopped."
"Everything's fine? You woke me up to tell me that?" Colonel Dastun practically screamed into the man's face. With a gulp, the lieutenant dashed out of Dastun's office, short-straw mission accomplished. Dastun shook his head, yawned and stretched. He supposed he should have gone home after his long, hard shift, but he'd wanted to stay in his office in case yet another emergency popped up. It was annoying as hell to be deprived of rest for a lack of emergency, however. Taking a deep swig of the cold, day-old coffee in his office mug, Dastun pulled open the venetian blinds covering his window and took in the view of Paradigm's outer-dome region. Life appeared to be getting back to normal – as normal as life in the City of Amnesia ever was.
Before he could follow the coffee up with a hardtack-stale danish, the phone on his desk began to ring.
"Now what?" he grumbled aloud to himself before picking up the receiver. "Dastun here." His bushy eyebrows furrowed in consternation. "Oh, it's you. How's-" He stopped to listen to the speaker on the other end of the line. "What? Of course! I'll be there right away!" He slammed the receiver down and dashed out of his office.
"Colonel, where are you going?" Lieutenant Johnson called to him as Dastun headed toward the military police's vehicle garage.
"Out." Dastun snapped, and commandeered a car.
[-]
"Mr. Smith, I could do more to help you if you would at least be honest with me," Dr. Carter said, putting away the stethoscope in his doctor's kit and taking out a small bottle of pills.
"Honest?" the patient coughed.
"You have a concussion, fever, contusions on most of your body, and the beginnings of severe bronchitis, and you've told me you got this way by cleaning your basement." The doctor gave Roger a cynical stare as Roger shrugged. "I seem to recall in the past you have also suffered electrical burns, pulled muscles, and on one very spectacular occasion a gunshot wound in your left arm from cleaning your basement. I can only conclude that you are either lying or," Dr. Carter said drily, "that you have an extremely dangerous basement."
Roger laughed weakly.
"You have no idea . . . ."
"Be that as it may," the doctor continued, snapping his medical case shut, "there is nothing amusing about your present condition. I can give you some medicine for the bronchitis, but you will probably start feeling a good deal worse before you are better, and I'll continue to check on you to make sure it doesn't turn into pneumonia. You need complete rest. No strenuous physical activity of any kind. And definitely no more 'basement cleaning' – do I make myself clear?" Dr. Carter aimed these last words at Norman and Dorothy, who were in attendance as well. All three nodded.
Norman showed Dr. Carter out the door just as Dan Dastun arrived. The officer stepped aside and watched the doctor's retreat with dismay before following Norman into the mansion.
"Shouldn't Roger be in the hospital?" Dastun asked. "If it's a matter of life and death like you said, I'll take him myself no matter how stubborn he is."
"It hasn't come to that yet," Norman told him, leading Dastun to Roger's bedroom.
Dastun had a hard time believing that as he saw the battered, coughing Paradigm City Negotiator lying in bed, looking nearly as pale as the android who sat in a bedside chair holding Roger's hand. He was in for an even bigger shock when Dorothy turned around to face him. Not only was her customary headband missing, but a good bit of the head underneath it was gone as well, leaving a gap where her central computer unit should be.
"Dastun," Roger managed a faint smile, "what are you doing here?"
"Norman, uh, told me you weren't doing too well," Dastun said, taking off his hat. "Thought I'd better come see you myself. You and that megadeus gave me a scare yesterday, sinking into the bay like that. I thought you were a goner."
"I thought I was too," Roger coughed, his voice reduced to a hoarse whisper. "Dorothy saved me." He gazed at her with unmistakable affection. "Took a little water in the lungs, though. I'm feeling it now."
"Colonel Dastun," Dorothy said, "Roger is very ill. He should rest."
Dastun arched an eyebrow at this hint of dismissal, but he couldn't disagree. Roger's eyes were already half closed, and he clearly didn't have the strength for a long visit. Dastun nodded.
"Guess I'll be going then. You take care of yourself, understand? And leave the city-saving up to the military police." Putting his cap back on, Dastun headed out the bedroom door and toward the front entrance when Norman pulled him aside.
"Colonel, if I might have a word with you?" The butler asked, and led the police officer into a sideroom, where Norman had a number of papers and schematics scattered on a small table.
"Roger sure looks bad," Dastun muttered. "But is he as bad as you think? Is his illness that serious?"
Norman shook his head.
"Master Roger is not near death," the butler said, picking up a blueprint. "Miss Dorothy is."
"What?"
"You noticed the open space in her forehead?" Norman asked.
"Of course I noticed! What the hell happened to her? And how is she even moving around and talking without her-?" He tapped his own head for emphasis.
Norman explained, in brief detail, the events of the past few days – how Dorothy had been kidnapped by Beck's robot drones and stripped of her memory circuitry by Alex Rosewater's scientists for the purpose of activating Big Fau. How she had appeared dead, only to come back online miraculously in time to save Roger.
"During the final battle, Miss Dorothy was connected directly to Big O's computer banks, and I was able to retrieve an analysis of her present condition from Big O. She is apparently running off of an emergency backup system that Professor Wayneright implanted in the area where her heart would be if she were human." Norman pointed to a section of the schematic he was holding. "But it is only an emergency backup system, never intended to be a permanent replacement. It did not activate right away, which is why we thought she was dead. And should the backup fail before her main memory circuit can be repaired, she will die for real."
"So what do you want me to do about it?" Dastun asked.
"Using the information from Big O's computers I believe I can repair her, but I will need certain parts which are difficult to obtain. Master Roger is in no shape to undertake any missions, and I dare not take my eye off either one of them right now." For a moment Norman's face crumpled with despair. "I know you are an important man, Colonel, too important to send on errands. But this is no easy task and I –" Norman's voice faltered. "I have no one else I can turn to. I saw how Master Roger grieved when we thought she was dead, and it was terrible. If we were to lose her now, permanently, while he is so ill . . . ."
"We could lose them both," Dastun said grimly. He remembered all too well how Roger reacted when Alan Gabriel, the sadistic Union assassin, had nearly destroyed Dorothy a few weeks earlier. This was a matter of life and death all right. "Give me your list."
"You'll do it then?" Norman almost begged as he handed over a sheet of paper.
"Roger's saved my life more times than I can count," Dastun answered. "If he and Dorothy need my help right now, it's the least I can do. Just keep them both alive until I get back."
"I'll do my best, Sir," Norman promised. "And thank you, Colonel."
As Dastun made his way out the front door, he took a look at the list – the long list – he'd been given. Norman should have wished him luck - he was going to need it.
[-]
"And that's the situation," Paradigm Corp's senior surviving board member, Francine Hatfield, addressed the very small group of people seated around the very large rectangular table. "The military police have restored order throughout the city, mass hysteria has abated, although a few pockets remain hazardous . . . ."
Casseey Jenkins kept a poker face as she counted the officials who'd actually showed up – a poor number at best. But if this was that survived of Paradigm Corp, the odds of resurrecting her cover were looking better and better.
"The public," Ms. Hatfield continued, "particularly outside the domes, must not be made aware of how many of our staff are missing or deceased. Alex Rosewater's dangerous experiment has cost the company dearly, but we will survive." She banged her fist on the table. "For the sake of the entire city, we must survive! I'm counting on all of you to do your duty while we recruit and renew our ranks!"
Her audience, including the sole representative of the Metropolitan Power Authority, applauded at the conclusion of her speech.
I'm going to pull this off, Angel thought, I really am.
Now if she could just keep the police from arresting her and Union agents from assassinating her, she would be home free . . . .
[-]
Dastun knew nothing about cybernetics, so for a first stop he went to the closest thing to an expert he knew.
"I'm sorry," R. Instro shook his head with genuine sadness, looking at the list. "My father might have had a good many of these items in his lab. But I sold our old house, contents and all, so I could pay for the repairs on my hands, and on the restaurant." With a sweep of those hands he gestured around the Amadeus. "I think I have a few of these parts. Father did keep a storage space here, but most of what you are looking for, no."
The musician android left for a few minutes to search the storage room and returned carrying a tiny box.
"Here are a few of the chips on your list. That's all I could find." Instro helpfully marked the items off on Dastun's sheet. "If you don't mind my asking, Colonel, what do you need all these parts for?"
"To repair an android that's been badly damaged," Dastun answered without further elaboration.
"Oh dear!" Instro exclaimed in dismay. "I wish I could do more to help you. I will keep searching and call you if any more components turn up."
"Thanks, Instro."
Colonel Dastun left the Amadeus and wondered where he could go next. It wasn't as if the city had a chain of build-your-own-android stores or even a large number of scientists who knew the technology involved. He wished to hell Norman could've picked someone more competent for this task, but who else could be trusted?
"Make it happen," Dastun grumbled to himself as he set out on the next part of his quest.
[-]
Beck snickered and congratulated himself on his own genius. The very last place anyone would think to look for him was Paradigm Corp's own headquarters. But the company seemed so mysteriously short-staffed that sneaking in had been simplicity itself. Rosewater's labs were abandoned, and now Beck roamed them at will, stuffing his pockets with every precious cybernetic part he could find. He wasn't sure what he'd build first, but soon he'd be able to break his criminal compatriots out of jail. Then he'd show Paradigm City what it really had to be afraid of!
[-]
Roger was dissolving. Trapped in a fever-induced nightmare, he saw his arms and legs melt into puddles of tomato stew. He wanted to call Big O for help, but his wristwatch had dissolved too. All his enemies stood around laughing at him as he melted. Just as he tried to scream, he heard Dorothy calling his name. A brilliant ray of light shined down on him and he suddenly awakened, limbs and watch intact, back in his bed. Dorothy pressed a cool, damp cloth to his forehead.
"Coming to my rescue again, huh?" he whispered with as much strength as he could muster.
"All I did was wake you up," she said. "You were having a bad dream."
He began coughing once more, and allowed her to give him a spoonful of vile-tasting red medicine.
"You will get better, you . . . you . . ." she stammered.
"Louse?" Roger suggested, and saw with amazement that there were tears in her eyes. Her normally rock steady hands were trembling. "Hey, I'm not that sick!" He rasped, and reached up to wipe away one of her oily tears. "Don't be afraid, Dorothy. There are rules in this house, and one of them is I don't let down the people I love."