"Normally I don't accept as clients people who have stuffed me in a bag," Dr. Billy, M.D. said, refusing to met Gary's eyes.
"I'm pretty sure that wasn't me," Gary replied. The little dwarf was singular enough to be remembered if he had done something like that. Billy Quizmaster was about four feet tall with an enormously enlarged skull. He was missing one eye, which he covered with a patch and one arm which was replaced by a robotic prosthesis of surprising dexterity. He was in his mid-30s and spoke with a pronounced lisp.
Dr Billy appraised him with his one good eye. "Perhaps not," he concluded. "Still there is the matter of your payment. Normally I expect cash. Fifty dollars every other week for the next ten years is..." he let the sentence trail off.
They were talking in a very swank offices in a downtown medical center. In a row above Billy's head were a series of framed degrees from respected universities and licenses from state and federal medical boards. Gary wondered what Billy Quizboy had done to move into such an expensive office since the last he'd heard Billy and his long time companion had been living in a single-wide trailer out near the Venture Compound. The various degrees carried dates spread out over the last eight years but the paper itself looked brand new. Dr. Billy, as he now insisted on being called, was wearing an immaculate white lab coat expertly tailored to fit his somewhat misshapened body.
"That's fifty dollars out of every paycheck I get," Gary argued. "It's as much as I can afford. OSI grunts like myself don't get paid much."
"Or have a long lifespan," Billy countered. "Still the patient is interesting." They looked across the room where Hank and Dean Venture were using a doggie squeak-toy to play "Keep Away" from a shambling, multi-hued individual covered in stitching. "You sure Dr. Venture created this - individual?"
"He admitted it himself. Calls it Venturestein."
"Interesting," Dr. Billy murmured. "This would be the first time Dr, Venture has actually completed a project that worked. To be honest, I did not know he had it in him."
"Well," Billy turned back to his desk and picked up all the papers Gary had filed out about his reanimated friend. "I am curious how Dr, Venture made this work so I will take on the case. And, since your payment plan is next to non-existent I will, on the advise of my financial adviser, do this pro bono."
"Hi there, Peter White, financial planner." The tall, slender man who had been sitting at another desk near Dr, Billy's, leaned over and offered his hand. It was unpleasantly pinkish, as were the eyes of the albino.
"You're trusting your money to this guy?" Gary asked Doctor Billy.
"Peter White is my oldest and most trusted friend." Billy said emphatically.
"But didn't he get you kicked off the quiz-boy circuit?"
"He stuck with me through thick and thin." Billy insisted.
"He's flagged by both the Guild and OSI as unreliable."
"I don't' like the tone of this conversation, Mr. Fuu. I trust Peter implicitly. If you do not like him you are welcome to take your business elsewhere.
"Like theirs is anywhere else to go."
"Then it's settled," Bill said with a smile. "Peter, how does my calender look?"
Peter White picked up a large, leather-bound appointment book and studied it for a moment. "You were scheduled for a heart transplant operation this afternoon but the - uh - patient died overnight."
"Oh, dear. And I liked him, too. Such a great comedian. So I'm guessing my afternoon is now free?"
"Yes. And the best part is we get to keep the money because he paid in advance." White said cheerfully.
"Well, Mr. Fuu," Billy addressed Gary, "If you could bring back Mr - ah - Stein in an hour we'll be ready to run some tests on him. Some of the tests will involve DNA sequencing so I won't have a final report until..." he counted three days on his fingers -" until Thursday. Come back around ten and we'll discuss my findings.
"That's great, doc, really great. Do you think he'll ever recover his memories?"
"We'll see. We'll see."
[]
Texas was on his three bowl of cereal when the boys came in for lunch. Most of the first two bowls were spread out on the floor. Apparently Texas had forgotten how to handle a spoon and had some trouble with hand-eye coordination. "Hey! Venturestein!" the boys cried with a wave at the shambling patchwork man at the table, and carefully walked around the mess on the floor to the refrigerator where they rummage for something to eat. Hank opened a can of Spaghetti-o's into a bowl and microwaved it. Dean prepared a salad. Gary wondered if he was going through a phase or something because he'd noticed that Dean had been favoring meatless meals.
Dean sat down at the table across from Texas, took a bite of his salad then asked, "Venturestein, whatcha been up to?"
The zombiefied henchman looked at Dean blurry-eyed for a moment, thought, long and hard (spoon on cereal hovering uncertainly in the air) before smiling. "De-an, Fri-end" he croaked. "I thought you were off with the army or something?"
"Army - bad. Go home. Cocoon."
"Cocoon?" Hank echoed, sitting down next to his brother. "Is he a friend of yours?" he asked Gary.
"What do you think? This is my old pal, Texas. Yeah we were buds in the Cocoon. He didn't come back from a mission and I figured he was dead. Brockified, as we called it. But your dad brought him back and as soon as we get his memories strengthened out, you'll see. He'll be as good as new!"
Hank looked at Gary like he was some kind of stranger, then looked at his brother and started humming the theme music to "The Twilight Zone."
Gary scowled. "His name is 'Texas,' not Venturestein. Don't confuse him by calling him something he's not," he told the boys. "The first step in dealing with trauma is to establish an environment of normality."
"Whatever."
Gary thought for a moment. "You said he was around here for a while, right." Dean nodded. "Did Triana ever see him back then?"
"Why?"
"She was there when we found him, and ran away screaming. I just wondered if she was like that when he was here before?"
Dean thought for a moment, "No I don't think she ever saw him. She was hanging out a lot at school at the time," Dean said.
"Dr. Orpheus came storming around, though, and had a long conversation with Pop," Hank added. "Boy, was he steamed, and I don't think he was any happier when he left either."
"Are we going to keep him? Dean asked.
"Of course. I just wondered what Triana's problem was." Venturestein had picked up his bowl and was trying to examine its underside. Gary snatched the bowl out of its hands before it had spilled any more milk and cereal. "Texas. ol' buddy. I think it's time for a quick bath then off to see a competent physician.
"Doctor Billy?"
"Bingo."
[]
Gary was in the waiting room three days later when Dr, Billy came out of his surgery leading a famous starlet. her face was swathed in bandages but her boobs were unforgettable. "Keep the bandages one for at least 72 hours," he was telling her. "Ah, that's three days." he added when she started counting hours on her fingers. "And no sun-tanning for a full month. Both natural and artificial. The strong light will only bring out the scars. I'll see you in a week to evaluate your prognosis." Billy handed the woman off to a Publicists, who wrapped the star in a scarf, big floppy hand and a over-sized rain coat before hustling her out the door.
Dr. Billy waved to Gary to come over to his desk. Billy had added a reflecting mirror headband to his costume. He fiddled a little with his after he had climbed into his chair. Steps had been built into one arm to help him reach the seat. The chair was otherwise an ordinary executive seat, deeply padded, upholstered in soft leather. Peter White was at his neighboring desk, apparently playing Portal with the sound off.
Billy pulled a large stack of papers out of his in basket and flipped through a few sheets before saying. "This is been a most interesting case, Mr. Fuu. I'm glad you brought it to me. And sorry about being such a dick about it last time. I should have known that as a former henchman you wouldn't have come to me with some ordinary weirdness. - Say where is Mr - uh - Stein?"
"Texas wandered off last night. I have the boys looking for him."
"Well, I hope they can find him because I would love to do a lot of studying of him." He paused. "You're not worried about Hank and Dean getting lost?"
"They've got their wrist communicators. It has built-in GPS. What about Texas?"
"Yes - umm. Mr. Stein - Texas - seems to be composed of organ parts from at least seven different donors. Possibly more since I only took random samples from a limited number of locations. Normally tissues from such diverse sources will conflict, creating an auto-immune infection that kills the host. Dr. Venture seems to have overcome that problem by soaking all the different tissues in some kind of stem cell bath before crudely sewing the body parts together with -ah - sewing thread. "
"Something wrong about that?"
"A real doctor would have used a surgical thread that dissolves after a while," Billy observed contemptuously. "Mr Stein will have sewing thread all through his body for years to come. I don't anticipate major problems with that. But he may have to come in from time to time to have loose threads removed."
"Anyway - " Billy turned a couple more pages. "You understand about stem cells, right?" Gary shook his head. "Ok, then. "The body grows from a single fertilized egg, right? The egg divides and divides and divides some more. Eventually the colony of cells has to start becoming the different kinds of tissues we have in our body - skin, muscle, nerve, bone, organ, etc. So hormones flood into the blastocyte triggering changes into the cells. These become the stem cells. In time as they grow and are exposed to various chemicals they turn into specific cells and organs but at this early stage they are very - ah - plastic. Dr. Billy paused to see if Gary was following.
"So what Dr. Venture seems to have done is use this strain of stem cells like a kind of plaster holding the different organs together, growing the missing parts where needed, growing new nerves to replace the damaged ones and applying an overall friend-or-foe identification system so the body doesn't tear itself apart through auto0immune disorders. This is really advanced stuff, and frankly if Dr. Venture were to make this available to the medical world he'd make that fortune he's always dreamed about."
Gary nodded in agreement but wondered where the lackadaisical Dr. Venture could have come up with something like that. He suspected this was some kind of modification of Jonas Venture, Senior's cloning technology, which was strictly prohibited by law. He probably couldn't reveal the source of the stem cells without revealing that he was involved in illegal technologies.
"What about Texas?" Gary asked. "Is he healthy?"
"His liver and kidney functions are excellent. Blood chemistries also come back fine. Maybe a little high in the bad LDC but nothing that's going to kill him. His shambling movements and bad posture largely come about from mismatched body parts and a general weakness in some of the regrown nerve tissues. Several years of intense physical therapy could fix that but as neither of us can afford that and he's doing well enough as it is, we'll leave it alone.
"And his brain?"
Billy frowned. "There's not much hope there. The brain is a very delicate organ, very susceptible to damage from oxygen deprivation. Parts of his brain has simply necrophiled. They're just not there. A lot of the missing brain tissue has been replaced by stem cells, which as new cells simple don't have any of your friend's memories. I would have to say that effectively he is a new person. There might be some residual memories in his deeper cortical knots but there's nothing I can do with restore his memories. There's nothing to restore."
A glum Gary thanked Billy and promised to bring in Venturestein in a month so he could run some further tests.
On the drive back the Venture Compound Gary passed a little store that specialized in educational supplied. He turned around, pulled into the store. He found several sets of flashcards there - numbers, shapes, objects. For the sake of his old friend he felt he had to do what he could to improve the creatures mind.