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Crimson Claws
12.
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Accompanying piece of music: Loverboy - Working for the Weekend 3.42 on Youtube or Spotify
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Everyone's watching, to see what you will do
Everyone's looking at you, oh
Everyone's wondering, will you come out tonight
Everyone's trying to get it right, get it right
Everybody's working for the weekend
Everybody wants a new romance
Everybody's goin' off the deep end
Everybody needs a second chance, oh
You want a piece of my heart
You better start from the start
You wanna be in the show
Come on baby let's go
Everyone's looking to see if it was you
Everyone wants you to come through
Everyone's hoping it'll all work out
Everyone's waiting they're holding out
Everybody's working for the weekend
Everybody wants "brentwoo " new romance
Hey, hey
Everybody's goin' off the deep end
Everybody needs a second chance, oh
You want a piece of my heart
You better start from the start
You "Brentwood!" in the show
Come on baby let's go
Hey
You want a piece of my heart
You better start from the start
You wanna be in the show
Come on baby let's "BRENTWOOD!"
He jumped up in shock.
Not wise, considering he had literally just had his head in the oven, which he had just cleaned. A sharp pain raced across his skull and down his spine accompanied by a metallic clank that drowned out his song just like the last shout. Still with the momentum he had in his hips from moving to the beat, he whirled around. The headphones of his walkman slipped from ears that didn't quite match the man-made device perfectly and he went into battle stance under the quieter chorus of one of his favorite songs. The next song would be The Way to your Heart and wouldn't fit quite so well for a fight with whoever had snuck into his and Thailog's lair.
Or yes - it would fit well - if he were to tear out this intruder's own heart. But no sooner had the shock of adrenaline lit up his eyes and spread to his muscles so that he could lunge at the enemy than the person burst into a wheezing cough and the would-be attacker bent over and shook in another breathless fit of weakness. Brentwood rolled his eyes, battle lust and vigor falling from him. He pulled off his headphones altogether and went crawling to his "father". He reached into the emaciated figure's trouser pocket and pulled out the inhaler that was always in there, helped Sevarius to the counter and pulled him onto one of the chairs there. As he had seen so often, he shook the inhaler before putting it to the doctor's lips.
Struggling to control his fit of coughing, his months-long pale face now red and blotchy with exertion, he nodded when he could be sure he wouldn't have to give in to another coughing spell for five seconds. Then Brentwood pressed the button and Anton Sevarius, the world's most brilliant geneticist, who had been suffering from a serious illness for several months, inhaled as deeply as he could. Then he held the inhalant in his lungs for as long as he could, his sunken cheeks puffed out, looking ridiculous and pathetic at the same time.
"What Doctor want from Brentwood?" the little misshapen Gargoyleclone asked, and his hand on his father ( with whom he had only once, only once, made the mistake of calling him father) was slapped away as forcefully as the disease-ridden human could manage.
"You defective product of pathetic gargoyle DNA! When you are called, you shall respond immediately. You with your fucking hippie music."
"No hippie music. Awesome-Mix 5!"
"I made you too old to be a know-it-all teenager now. Now come on, there are more important things than ... whatever you're doing here. And take off the rubber gloves and that stupid thing, you have no idea how disturbing it is to see a creature like you in an apron."
"Not a creature! Gargoyle. And it's a smock," he hissed quietly and the Doctor gave him a look that reduced him to less than nothing.
Brentwood looked grimly at the polished worktop, letting his gaze wander over the rest of the expensive kitchen unit, which he had cleaned this evening (Tuesday evening was kitchen day, Wednesday and Saturday were bathroom days. Mondays were Thailog's rooms, Thursdays the doctor's, Fridays all the common rooms. On Sundays the attic and the doctor's laboratory, which was in the cellar). He was actually finished here, but the inside of the oven was still covered in a white film of scouring agent.
"Busy," muttered Brentwood, his mind on his series, which started in half an hour.
"Need I remind you whose house you and your master are currently staying at?"
"Under yours?"
"Exactement you earliest, flawed spawn of a nightmare. And as much as I appreciate that you have been trained by Thailog to be such a good little household elf - I have another use for you. An important task."
"Important task? For me?" He felt his ears perk up and saw the doctor - though a shadow of his former self - grin manipulatively. A skull over which pale skin was stretched, thought Brentwood, who, as so often, found it easier to roll complex thoughts around in his brain than to say them - not that he would ever say such a thing to the Doctor. Not only because he and Thailog were his "house guests" but because the human, despite his early stage of decomposition, was still very dangerous if you provoked him.
"If you want to rise above your status as maid and errand boy, then follow me."
He followed the decrepit man to the stairwell where he stepped into the elevator. It was one of those antique models with no real door, just an ornate folding iron gate that Brentwood pulled shut so the doctor could press the buttons. Although the house only had four floors and had seen better days, the elevator had probably been a reason to buy it - long before the doctor had noticed the first signs of his illness. Now it was an indispensable aid for the weakened geneticist.
Now the cane on top was no longer just part of a charade and Brentwood found that quite satisfying. Just because Sevarius had created him didn't mean he had to like him or even want him to live. Rather the opposite, because as Thailog always said, humans were worthless apart from the value they were given. And if they no longer fulfilled that value ... there were enough of these critters.
Brentwood - however was not allowed to use the elevator. Servants didn't ride elevators in their masters' homes, Sevarius had said back then with a wickedly cutting smile, even though Brentwood had wanted to spit in his face that he was NOT a servant but Thailog's equal partner, his peer, if not in intelligence and strength and speech, then within their exclusive two-person clan. But Thailog had held him back then. He had leaned down and whispered in his ear - a closeness so rare and precious that the mere memory of it sent shivers down his spine with its protruding spikes. He had whispered that he had to restrain himself. At the moment, they would be dependent on the doctor's hospitality and skills. But not forever. And when the doctor had given them everything and had served his purpose, Brentwood could have him.
Brentwood had been wondering for weeks WHEN he would finally be allowed to settle accounts with his arrogant father and how much of the dwindling human body would still be there at that point. For months he had been pondering what wonderful things he could do with his maker. Nothing with claws and teeth, as would be his first impulse. No. After careful consideration, he had come to the conclusion that as a "creation" of the doctor, regardless of whether he called him father or not, he was somehow "from him" after all. So it would only be appropriate if the Doctor's creation himself began to develop some scientific interests and lived out this interest in the Doctor. Nothing too difficult, he hadn't gotten to that yet in the geneticist's notes and in the reference books he had picked up here and there. But he could work on the doctor a little with his scalpels. These thoughts kept him amused when he felt particularly wronged again.
Brentwood took the stairs down to the cellar.
He didn't like the cellar, which served as a laboratory. It was the brightest room in the house (not that Brentwood needed the light) but whenever he cleaned here he was under constant surveillance. Either the doctor or, with increasing debility, Thailog watched him to make sure he didn't press a button on the computer or accidentally pull one of the many plugs. Something had been going on down here for months that Sevarius called his most important experiment. The culmination of his creation myth and yet the first chapter of a new book - that's what he had called it back then with a dreamy look.
Brentwood gazed at the clone floating in an amber-colored liquid in the large tank at the side of the main basement room. Just as he had done before his "birth". Like Thailog had done. But there was no magnificent new gargoyle in the incubation cell. It was a pathetic creature. THAT was a creature indeed. It disgusted him, and frankly, he was disgusted by what the Doctor was going to do with it. He had explained it to Thailog in great detail and Brentwood had listened as he always listened without saying much but thinking all the more. THIS was supposed to be better than him and the other clones? Better than Thailog? Ridiculous. But it meant EVERYTHING to the Doctor. And if it meant a lot to the Doctor, it was unfortunately also important to Thailog - and therefore to Brentwood.
"What do I do?" Brent asked, not looking again in the direction of the incubator.
"You - little Brentwood - will take care of En.25-1."
"Taking care?" Brentwood pulled up one corner of his mouth and showed a confused fang. He knew that was what Sevarius called the clone.
Project Encore, test series 25 - tissue sample 1 had finally shown the mutation-free healthy cell division rates and had been implanted into the enucleated egg last winter. Apparently, the Doctor - in years of disbelief in his own measly mortality - had not collected and cultured his own tissue samples before his disease had broken out. At least none that he could have used. Oh, he had always produced new clones of himself - always one in reserve in case something happened to him. The chip in his wrist would automatically boot up the systems in his lab after three hours with no vital signs, and give the harvest-ready clone in question the final back-up of his spirit, mind and being - a perfect copy of himself in a younger, healthier body. Rising from the incubator like a phoenix from the ashes.
But with this plan, he had only ever thought of unnatural forms of death that could render his original body useless. Of a justifiably jealous colleague who came to eliminate the competition. A customer who realized that he had received more than he was able to swallow. He would have suspected even an ungrateful experiment like the chimeras in the labyrinth of killing him. He had never thought that he was mortal like any normal human. Mortal and susceptible to disease. He had ignored his symptoms until the disease had spread to his lungs and bones. And as Thailog had indicated, even a little to the brain, which he didn't think would affect the back-ups because they would iron out error codes.
Worse still, when he went to activate his back-up body - and just ran it through routine test programs - he found that this clone was flawless, youthful and, although the doctor would never admit it, better than the original, but NOT perfect. That this clone had the same disease as him. That the proliferating cells were already inside him and would even become noticeable through accelerated aging just a few weeks or months after his "birth". He had been clinging to a single large tumor the whole time. And the possibility of developing healthy stem cells from his already cancerous cells had been ... difficult. And after more than a year and 24 failed trials of the Encore project, he had tried a different approach. And the first of 12 modified tissue samples had been his breakthrough. And his only hope because he simply had run out of time.
The first question Thailog had asked after realizing that the clone would be different from Sevarius had also crossed Brentwood's mind.
And Sevarius - in his inimitably ridiculous and yet serious way - had explained that he had always been many things, but never a sexist. Not when it came to himself. After all, it was 2009 and apart from the alluring prospect of reaching new heights in acting and disguise with a completely different body, it would be fun to be on the "right" side of these silly me too debates. And if his new body didn't have Y chromosomes because the cancer was apparently clinging to the male genome - then he'd be fine with a female body. At least until he made something better.
"Why am I looking after clone? It's in the brood chamber," Brentwood muttered, looking at the nearly full-grown thing whose flowing hair waved all through the container like seaweed. Urrrgh, so much hair. Thailog's hair was beautiful and Brentwood would cut off a finger if he could just push his face into it and take a deep breath once, but this was so disgusting. Why the hair in his armpits? Why the hair on the crotch? The doctor had SO bad taste. Brrr.
"You need to watch En.25-1 because the imprinting starts tonight."
"Ah- body stable now?"
"Yes. At last. But the programming is the most important thing about it. I'm already going to implant all the knowledge about the world and about me into her. Everything I consider important. This will make the transfer of the final back-ups, which will contain my memories and my wonderful character, much faster.
"Why not Doctor watch out? Or Thailog?"
"I'm decomposing more and more, as you may have noticed," snarled the haggard Doctor. "I have to sleep more than I used to and I keep falling asleep even in the middle of work. And Thailog is getting me various chemical components that I need for the project that will earn me a lot of money in my new body. After all, it will take a few years for Aloisia Sevarius to make a name for herself.
Aloisia! Brentwood wanted to exclaim in horror, but just managed to refrain from doing so out of an instinct for self-preservation. Instead, he asked about the project as if he was really interested. Because for Sevarius, despite his advanced dying major, he always liked to hear himself talk.
"The one for the Taliban, you know. They with their morphing super soldiers. Imagine mutants that could morph into humans. Or could take on a different face as easily as blinking. It's going to be fantastic, I think I'll build something like that into my new clone that I'm breeding from this one. Would make it easier for me to adopt new faces."
Brentwood was completely baffled as to why someone who had escaped the ridiculousness of being human would want to become human again. Yes, he could see the benefits. He and Thailog also used those morphing stripes that you stuck under your tongue when they absolutely had to. They had managed to steal a whole truckload of them last winter. But that was something for emergencies. Not something you would want voluntarily.
"Why Thailog not take me along for support?"
"Because he doesn't need you," the Doctor purred and Brentwood growled menacingly.
"Oh Boitte Pigssquit," the Doctor purred in a brittle, aged voice. "As if you'd do me any harm if I'm going to develop his new Coronavirus that only works on normal humans right after the Taliban project. I'm too important - whether with this broken body or with my soon-to-be new one. And if I were you, I'd show that I can be useful beyond Cinderella activities. Because believe me, when Thailog sees what can be done with the 2009 super soldiers, he'll want a few himself. And even the crappiest of them will be more formidable than you. So? Are you fulfilling your new task?"
The little clone swallowed the heat of humiliation that rolled over him at the doctor's threatening words. Then he lowered his gaze so that Sevarius could not see the hateful glow in it.
"Yes. Brentwood watch clone."
"Good, you just have to make sure that the programs keep running. As a safety mechanism, the program would otherwise stop after every step and we don't want it to stop, do you understand that? Because if it does... because otherwise... " the doctor frowned and shook his head in annoyance. A skull that had been stuck on a gnarled branch and wobbled in the wind. Instead of admitting that his decaying brain had forgotten why, Sevarius made light of it to save face.
"I don't have to explain to you why. Follow orders, that's what you were made for. Every four hours, the program asks if it should go to the next development step. It starts with little things like independent breathing, swallowing and muscle training as well as electromagenetic stimulation via the liquid in the tank." He approached him and handed him a digital watch.
"This one will sound an alarm every four hours - five minutes before the four hours are up. And then, after the system asks and you press Proceed, you push these three buttons on the keypad." The doctor showed him which ones. Brentwood nodded wordlessly instead of rolling his eyes so hard that they almost fell out of the back of his head and, as usual, felt unappreciated and underchallenged. "It's enough that I have to cover the other cycles during the day," the doctor finished huffily, then gestured in the direction of the room. "And do me a favor. I've seen rat droppings down here."
"Brentwood clean more?"
"Brentwood rat kill," the doctor mimicked him spitefully.
"Don't like rats, prefer pigeons," Brentwood said, wrinkling his nose.
"I don't give a damn if you eat the critters when you get them. Just kill them. I can't have vermin in these rooms. You're bad enough."
With that, the doctor started the first four-hour cycle, walking into the elevator as it rattled upward, groaning like its passenger. Brentwood felt the hateful growl vibrating in his chest. But instead of letting it leak out, he just flipped two birds at the last third of the Doctor as the elevator went up. Then he squatted down on the concrete floor and stared at the thing in the brood cell. He didn't care if he ever played with the Doctor's original body - when he was no longer useful to Thailog - or with this new body. Both would be Doctor Anton Sevarius. His father. And the biggest asshole on the planet.
Visible through the breathing mask; Project EN25-1 was already showing his typical twisted smile which, despite being all skin and bones, looked slimy and pathological.
Oh Brentwood would enjoy tearing apart whatever would be left of Sevarius.
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The doctor had swapped his cane for the infusion stand, as he did every evening, which he used to drag himself through the living areas before going to bed. Thailog considered it comical to have a human in the house for whom every time he fell asleep was a cliffhanger. But on the other hand, he still needed the doctor for a while. But at the moment Sevarius looked less morose than usual and that could only be due to his project.
In the mood to engage in some pointless palaver and humor his human house father after his equally successful mission, he put his book aside. "I assume my little birdie will be busy hatching your little birdie for the next few weeks."
The doctor sat down on the couch opposite him, grimacing even more disgustingly than usual but not commenting on Thailog's aloof nonchalance.
"A project so superior to my others that I couldn't even put a price on it if Xanatos would give me free access to his money bin and let me have free choice. My pride and joy. My most recent and certainly most important and brilliant venture - nothing against you Thailog, - would deserve so much better. But yes- ."
"Your own clone, it's only natural that you're thrilled and on the edge, Doctor. I wonder why you haven't slipped into other bodies many times."
"Because I am the doctor and never the experiment, Thailog. To use these means would be a shortcut inappropriate of my magnificence. This now is a necessary evil."
"Always Doctor Frankenstein, never Frankenstein's monster - if that's how you see yourself - so be it."
The doctor leaned forward, new fire in eyes that otherwise seemed to gather a little less light each day and Thailog knew now was coming what had topic over a dozen times and leaned forward in feigned interest. As said- it was in his best interest to keep his sometimes forgetful sponsor happy.
"This clone is not just a clone. It will be ... flawless. I told you this clone won't get that damn disease like my original body unfortunately did. But beyond that, it will never get any disease. Even the most common signs of aging won't show up."
"Are you saying your clone will be immortal?"
"Immortality is not my ambition. No, the clone will age. I have no interest in going underground just because I don't age, should I ever find a very comfortable position in this new body with unlimited resources and adored by clients and revered by the scientific community. No, it will look like I'm aging but I will remain, shall we say, spry.
But this clone will be immune to every disease, past, present and future, every plague, every virus, its body will - once exposed to a pathogen - become immune to it within a few hours. If they are toxins like Novicoc, even within minutes. Hopefully with little more than a few muscle aches and headaches. Even the genetic damage caused by radioactive radiation is ironed out. The magic word is stem cells. Not only in the fetus but also in adult life cycles."
"You have created a specimen that consists only of stem cells? You could go into mass production, harvest these cells and sell them for billions to the sickest of the rich."
"And thereby diminish my own value? Au contraire, my frightening friend. Hardly!" Sevarius spat and cleared his throat before he started another coughing fit. Thailog was patient while the doctor sucked on his inhaler and took a practiced look at the clear IV solution to see when he would have to replace it with the next life-sustaining Ambrosia.
"Aside from this superior body, the programming will also be superhuman."
"Don't we all want our offspring to be smarter than us," Thailog hummed with venomous sweetness, flashing a fang that made the sarcasm even more obvious.
"Even though I'm brilliant, of course," his human counterpart said a little miffed, "I've never found the time or the leisure to study things that weren't really necessary for my field of expertise. People have to specialize in a few areas in order to excel in them after decades. Unfortunately, other things fall by the wayside. And that will be erased with the programming. General knowledge, what you learn at school, college, university ... most things are only scratched, aren't they? And real life skills! Phaa. But my new body beyond that would be every intelligence chief's wet dream. I've spent the last few years ... let's say harvesting the cognitive and motor skills of various professions and securing them in my system.
A foreign language specialist so that I can always know what the people around me are thinking to hide from me. A technician to assemble my machines myself. An Oscar-winning actor and a make-up artist to raise my performances to new heights. A sniper as well as a close combat expert, so that I will be able to handle weapons of all kinds. My body, that body down there will be a weapon in itself. And on top of that, only 30 percent of the normal human sensation of pain. Imagine that, Thailog. All this hidden in a woman's body. No one will see that coming! I- in this body, will no longer be at the mercy of brutal thugs like ... well. I will no longer be a rag doll to be thrown around the place. When I do something - for me! - then I'll do it right!"
Thailog nodded understandingly, knowing the doctor was thinking of his abduction by Goliath back then and how easy it was to turn a clever man like him into a whiny little worm wailing for his physical integrity. Still, Thailog doubted whether Sevarius would be any match for someone like Goliath or him in his new body. Because if that were the case ... Thailog would rather give up his pleasant lair and leave behind one shattered incubator and one Sevarius torn in two in his wake.
Me making up medical and science stuff xDD -
Thanks for reading. Q.T.