Damaged Goods
Chapter 2
by Dr. Seth
CHAPTER 2: DUANE DAMAGED
"Another long night at Quark," Erika sighed to herself. That
stupid meeting Donovan had concocted about his "meat flavored toothpaste"
had lasted well past 10 pm. She was anxious to get working on the further
development of her robo-gel again and projected she’d most likely spend
the night at Quark once more. The way she’d been working lately, she
barely went home anymore. She was sleepily yawning as she opened the door
to her office, but was confronted by a sight that immediately perked her
up.
"Rusty!" she exclaimed, marching up to the robot illegally perched
on her computer. He swiftly swiveled in surprise, detaching and leaving
his arm jacked into the computer by accident." I thought we had an
agreement- no web surfing without permission, and never after power down
time!"
"I was just...." He groped for a smooth recovery, but gave it up
when he noticed his arm still jammed in the modem. She helped him off the
desk and screwed his arm in for him.
"You are in so much trouble, mister...." she sighed, finishing the
job.
"I just wanted to see if Big Guy had a web site!" Rusty loudly
whined in his defense.
"Rusty, robots don’t usually have web sites." Dr. Slate went to
shut off the computer but was intrigued by the words on the screen; it
read "BGY 11: security clearance only." She twisted towards the robot
sharply. "I want you to give me 200 rounds of target practice, now."
"But you said it was past my power-down time!" He stamped his foot
indignantly.
"Yes, but you’ve been a bad boy! And I want to see printouts of
your score, too!" she sternly insisted until he left, though he was quite
annoyed. As soon as he was gone, she quickly turned her attention back to
the screen and began typing rapidly.
"You don’t know it, Rusty," she said through anticipation-clenched
teeth, "but you’ve hacked your way into a top secret military site!" She
filed through pages and pages of details on the project since conception,
through the first BGY’s, which didn’t make it all the way to production
until number ten. Ten was eventually scrapped midway through for an
updated version, which is the one most are familiar with- the BGY 11.
It looked as if the project was going smoothly until she opened the
file labeled 'artificial intelligence'. Partial schematics indicated the
artificial intelligence matrix that was installed was seriously faulty.
Proof of that came in the form of a short clip, which she eagerly
downloaded. The film, which dated back 15 years, contained a grainy image
of an older man questioning the halfway-assembled robot. "How many fingers
am I holding up?" the figure asked. "Thursday!" Big Guy triumphantly
boomed. Erika was dumbfounded; how could they release something so
under-developed with such a large arsenal? Ah, she noted; there were still
6 years of development to go- Big Guy was only nine years old.
She delved into the next chunk of information hoping to learn more about the system they eventually worked out only to find that the military had impatiently scrapped the artificial intelligence after four years of research that yielded few advancements. No wonder the military is in bed with Donovan! she snidely noted; they’re both cut from the same cloth. They didn’t realize what a slow process it was to build the artificial intelligence template. At this point in the project, Dr. Poindexter, the original creator, left and the schematics became even more degenerated, and finally, non-existent.
The next file was labeled 'Human Factor'. She apprehensively opened
it, not wanting to confirm her suspicions. In the sequential pages, there
were diagrams of Big Guy’s body being mostly hollowed out and replaced
with a cockpit. The neural system that used to be connected to the AI
brain was rerouted and fed into many crude levers, switches, and buttons
for the human pilot to operate. But who was the human pilot? As she
progressed to the next page, that question was answered, much to her
immeasurable disbelief. Lieutenant Duane Hunter. She read the name, but
the picture that hovered above it didn’t match the man she had met with
that moniker. She dragged her hand slowly across her face in astonishment.
The man in the photo was wearing the same dress uniform, though comparably
less decorated. He had thick, dark brown hair, untainted by grey, his nose
had perhaps been broken once, there were no scars, no missing ears.... But
then, she caught it-- there was no mistaking those sparkling green eyes
for any others. My God, she thought, what has happened to him?!
She read the credits that came with his name. He had enlisted at
18, and he’d led the first bomb raids into Japan during the Great War of
’99, and was consequently shot down. He suffered as a P.O.W. in hellish
Japanese camps for some of the war, until he brought it down from within
and led the prisoners across the country until they were reunited with
American forces. Her heart pounded wildly within her. She could barely
imagine living in such conditions, let alone showing such bravery,
resolve, and valor. As she shook herself free of those fearful notions,
she thought perhaps here was where he gained his peculiar deformities. At
the consideration that the Japanese tortured him, her heart ached in pity,
but in the following reels of his training, he still looked pretty much
the same. She sifted through footage that showed him exhibiting the skills
the military desired, and concluded with him joining the BGY 11 project.
She moved onto the next page, which began his Big Guy test runs. A
more familiar and recent picture was present. Here he looked just as he
did when he met her, give or take a few scars and grey hairs. Just as she
closed a window containing a disturbing film in which he was being trained
to live in a small, dark container with minimal distractions and
necessities, Rusty quietly crept up behind her.
"I’m done now, Dr. Slate. Here are my scores." His voice scared her
out of her wits, and when she regained them, she had the presence of mind
to try to cover the computer screen with her body. As she stood there,
scrunched against the desk, she must have looked as guilty as he did much
earlier. She snatched the printout of his scores and hurriedly looked over
them.
"Hmm. Well. Much better than before, but you still need some work."
She tried to hide her trembling hands by flipping through the papers in an
exaggerated manner and readjusting her glasses.
"Heyyy." He craned his neck around to peek at the screen. "Isn’t
that Lt. Duane?" he innocently implored, peering at the bit of screen
visible around her elbow.
"N-no!" she replied, flustered, leaning closer to the screen. Just
then, much to her delight, her screensaver kicked in, and she grabbed
Rusty and scooted him into his room. "Enough out of you, let’s get you
powered down," she said, propping him up on his bed.
"Today, I went into Dr. Huckle’s office, and he told me all about
how people trade pictures over the internet! He sent you a picture too,
Dr. Slate!" Rusty naively said.
"Did he?" Erika played dumb, but she began to feel the beginnings
of nausea stirring in her gut, for she had already opened the picture
(which he 'cleverly' disguised as work) during lunch.
"Dr. Huckle said people send each other pictures of themselves so
they can make a love connection." He pressed the tips of his index fingers
together and made kissy noises.
"If he really liked me, he’d keep his pants on!" she said under her
breath. "Rusty, I don’t want you playing in dirty ol’ Huckle’s office any
more," she warned, and then, remembering his propensity for repeating
verbatim anything he heard, added, "And don’t tell him I said that!"
"Ooooo-kayy!" He flopped back into bed. Right as she moved to power
him down, he became suddenly serious. "Dr. Slate, are you just going to
turn out the lights and leave me in darkness?" he asked quietly. She knew
what was coming; he was going to bring up the irrational fear of the dark
once more.
"Well, yes. What do you propose I do?" She was rather exasperated,
for this bogeyman thing had gone on long enough.
"Please leave the light on! I’m afraid the Meat Man will get me...."
He drew his knuckles to his mouth and chewed vigorously.
"Meat Man?" This ridiculousness had a name. "Rusty, there is no
‘meat man’, except in Mr. Mark Ryden’s head, and in your head, too! He
doesn’t exist, got it?" She had reached the end of her patience.
"But he’ll come in the dark and mess with my brains!" He clutched
his little cranium in fear.
"There is no such thing as the meat man, and that is that!" But of
course, just when she thought her resolution was final, his adorable little
face broke her resolve. She sighed in defeat. "I’ll leave one light on, but
no more, ok?" She gave in, much to his delight, and he gratefully gave her
a quick hug. She lay him back down gently, and then shut him off. How
silly! Just what had inspired this bizarre concoction?
She truthfully didn’t want to waste any more time and quickly
buried her concern to return to her snooping. She continued downloading
more training footage, beginning with Lt. Hunter practicing in a partially
put-together, skeletal Big Guy, which then progressed into about an hour
of film in which he learned to move and emote in a more fluid, human way
instead of being a guy trying to operate a huge clunky robot. She could
see why the military would choose someone so small for this project; the
inside of Big Guy was cramped and full of ambulatory and weapons controls,
leaving little room for the pilot. She viewed more footage of him using the
extensive arsenal and practicing tricky aerial maneuvers, which spanned a
year. He remained perfectly normal-looking during this time. The next file
was just a vast list compiling all of the battles that had occurred and
the discovery of several weaknesses that they had studied then fixed.
"Oh, dear God..." she shuddered with the grim realization of what
this must be like. She attained an immense respect for Lt. Hunter. What
horrors had he suffered through? The sudden blaring of Quark’s emergency
signal jolted her. She just stared at the flashing red lights dumbly, her
mind engrossed with Lt. Hunter. She had little time do so, for Rusty was
connected to such emergency signals, and his power down command was
overridden.
"Ready and rarin’ to go!" she heard his voice automatically chime
from the next room. She regrettably and quickly shut off the computer. She
decided right there on the spot she never wanted Rusty to find out about
Big Guy’s secret until she had a better grasp of what would occur to the
emotion grid. He rounded the corner and looked up at the flashing lights.
"Something’s going down," he said.
"Well, let’s go see just what’s happening." She ushered him out the
door and followed the trail of commotion. It led straight to Quark’s
largest meeting room, where she had just been a few hours earlier. Since
the meat meeting had gone on so long, the scientists that had booked it
had to wait, and converged there much later than they had anticipated. She
noticed a huge hole in the ducts just outside of the room, whose glass
entrance had been thoroughly shattered. The scientists were all in their
seats, save the one who was probably lecturing and was now slumped over
the desk, and they seemed to be staring blankly into space, lying limply
in their chairs. Dr. Donovan was already there, and was grilling the
security guard.
"Dammit, this is just what happened to Dr. Ellerby!" he fumed.
"What the hell is going on? Did you see what in blazes did this?!"
"Well, sir..." The security guard struggled with his next few words.
"It was like a spider, only way bigger...and it sucked out everybody’s...
brains...I guess."
"Bigger than a bread box?" Jenny cynically asked from her spot on
Donovan’s shoulder.
"Bigger." The security guard made a widening gesture with his hands.
"Bigger than the Big Guy?" Donovan stroked his chin.
"You got it!" the guard nodded.
"Call the robot." Donovan demanded.
"In the meantime, I’ll scout ahead till Big Guy gets here!" With
that, Rusty dove into the hole in the overhead ducts.
****************************************************
Rusty switched on his night vision to better maneuver in the poorly
lit ducts. A small apprehension entered his head concerning the Meat Man,
but he quickly pushed it aside to concentrate on the task at hand. After
all, Dr. Slate said he didn’t exist, and since she was way smarter than he
was, it had to be true...so he hoped.
He readied his finger and charged it with nucleo-protons, but it
did little good- in a moment, he was assaulted from behind. A giant
tentacle wrapped around him and overpowered him. He turned to see an
enormous hideous spider, crouched in one of the many maze-like tunnels,
that descended to peer at him closer.
Rusty couldn’t help but recoil slightly. It was one of the most
gruesome things he’d seen in his short life. It was a good eleven feet
tall, with thick yet graceful long black legs. The most fearsome part of
its anatomy had to be its revolting head, which looked like a human face
that had been distorted to an extreme. It had a regular sort of human
mouth, except the skin was pulled back so it was eternally grimacing, and
it was joined by a more spider-like one underneath it. The two tentacles
that were holding him fast extended from either side of the mouths. The
nose had been smeared back into two small holes and had two deep-set red
eyes that hung like emotionless marbles in the hard, black, elongated
face. What made up most of the spider’s height was its massive head which
seemed to have a rather tremendous brain case, for through the thinnest
part of the case’s walls toward the back of the head, he could see coils
of pulsing grey matter.
"Hmm, the boy robot...." It slurped noisily as it talked out of the
human mouth.
"You know me?" Rusty couldn’t help asking.
"Oh, yes. I was Dr. Neugog before I...." He paused briefly.
"Evolved. Now, where can I find your mommy? She had a nice, big, juicy
brain."
"I’ll never let you near her! You can’t have her brain!!" Rusty
squirmed to no avail within the monster’s grasp. Neugog sighed loudly.
"I tire of you, Tinkertoy. I guess I shall just have to find her
for myself...." With this he violently threw Rusty back down the tunnels
from whence he came. He banged around inside the duct until he finally
fell out of the hole he previously went in.
"I saw it! I saw the monster!" Rusty announced, sprawling on the
carpet outside the meeting room. Dr. Slate ran to his side, followed by
Donovan. "It was a huge spider, and he said his name was...." Rusty
struggled a bit. "Noi-gogg."
"Neugog?" Jenny and Donovan asked in unison.
"Isn’t that the creepy guy that was working on some sort of
telepathy machine?" Donovan asked the small simian.
"Yeah, and wasn’t Dr. Ellerby supposed to go see him today?" she
replied uneasily.
"He said he was looking for brains! Smart ones! He said he was
coming for you, Dr. Slate!" Rusty worriedly clutched at her sleeves. He
seemed to perk up suddenly, and soon she knew the cause of his elation,
for there was a pair of white titanium boots fast approaching right
outside the door. Dr. Slate stood up, initially relieved to see Big Guy,
but that soon crumbled when she saw him destroy part of a wall just to
make it into the hallway.
"Big Guy!" Rusty yelled, leaping into the air.
"Hey, Big Guy!" Dr. Slate called "The walls aren’t made of
cookies or Styrofoam around here- can’t you use a door?"
"Hello, citizens! What seems to be the trouble?" Big Guy asked,
ignoring Dr. Slate. Inside, Duane was already looking up her license
tag -- that little red car was as good as crunched!
"There’s a giant spider guy inside the air ducts and he’s
sucking out smart people’s brains!" Rusty cried, flying up to the
robot’s eye level and pointing at the hole in the duct.
"Hmm. Well, it’s a tight fit for me, so I’ll smoke him out
with a party favor!" Big Guy launched a few smoke bombs into the
ducts. "Go fan out and comb the floor, soldier."
"Right!" Rusty saluted his hero briefly and then flew out the door.
"In the meantime...." Big Guy turned to Erika and Donovan. "If
this thing's eating smart snacks, you’d better get out of here, Dr.
Slate. You too, Jenny. Dr. Donovan, there’s no real threat present
for you." Donovan, too slow to catch the joke made at his expense,
sighed in relief. Erika couldn’t help giggling a little. Jenny, too,
had a little chuckle as she leapt onto Dr. Slate’s shoulder.
"But seriously," Dr. Slate sobered, "if this thing was at one
point Dr. Neugog, I’m going back to his lab to try to piece together
what exactly happened to him."
"I don’t think that’s such a good idea, ma’am," Big Guy
strongly suggested. Duane couldn’t help but wonder if Dr. Slate was
that brave, or just that stupid! Didn’t she see what had happened to
the other scientists?
"Look, we’ve got to find a way to solve this and maybe give
these people their minds back. It won’t do to just blow him to
smithereens!" She planted her hands on her hips in determination.
"I’ll take my chances!" Jenny hopped back onto Donovan’s shoulder.
"You’re the boss," Big Guy yielded, letting her pass through
the giant hole he had made in the wall first. As she marched onwards,
she stopped by his leg and gave it a quick pat.
"You be careful in there," she said, looking up at Big Guy
circumspectly. Duane rolled his eyes. What did she mean by that? She
seemed to act a little strange, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
Regardless, he turned his mind back to the task at hand. He used his
link to Quark’s security cameras and paired it with his infrared
scanners. He identified four more victims on other floors, Rusty
flying through the halls, and finally spotted his target hurriedly
struggling through the pipes, climbing upwards towards the ceiling.
He arrived on the roof just in time to see the ugly creature burst
its way out of a vent, coughing furiously with smoke-choked lungs.
"Sounds like you need a lozenge!" he prepared the guns on the
top of the hands. "One for each mouth." The spider was caught off
guard and began scrambling away. Duane let several rounds loose, but
none seemed to have any effect. Having just learned this as well,
Neugog quickly scrambled over and wrapped his tentacles around Big
Guy’s hands, then locked them together.
Swift, Assface, Duane smirked.
"Greeeat, another robot," Neugog groaned. Then, he snuffled
a bit. "Wait! I smell something squishing!" he cried with great
elation. A long tube with tendrils ringing the opening emerged from
his spider mouth and swept over the chest area. "So you are hiding
sweetbreads in there, you dickens!" Neugog slurped noisily. Duane,
though quite repulsed, felt he had nothing to fear at the moment;
after all, he was encased in ten tons of steel. "Hmmm...Tank tread
repairs...military salutations.....Sweet Betsy Ross? Ugh, how banal.
Your aptitude does not wet my appetite." Just as the spider let go
of him, Duane once more aimed his weapons, but found his will
slipping away from him.
"Down, boy!" Neugog hissed. Duane labored with the simple
task of jostling a lever he’d pulled a thousand times before as he
felt the spider’s telepathy seep into every crevice of his mind.
Unfortunately, one of his last free thoughts was concern for Dr.
Slate, and soon he lay limply and helplessly, a slave of Neugog’s
telekinesis.
"Ahhhh...." Neugog rubbed his legs together in satisfaction.
"You do know of someone who’s a little brighter than you. How
delightful! Now why don’t you bring that brilliant brain to me!"
Without hesitation, Duane commanded Big Guy to his feet, and sought
out his prey.
**********************************************
Dr. Slate quickly sifted through the partially destroyed lab
and discovered Neugog’s journal hidden underneath stacks of useless
papers. She flipped through the first few pages, which detailed the
machine’s construction and got into his later studies. Once the
machine had been established and the primary test runs successful,
he discovered the machine had limited psychic abilities that were
incredibly unstable, but it also had an unpredicted side effect-
mild telekinesis and slight mind control. She could see why he had
never revealed these details- he seemed to have unscrupulous plans
for this unforeseen development. The last page began with a rant, in
which Donovan was pressuring him to demonstrate his machine’s
ability, and he had set up an appointment with Dr. Ellerby, but that
was where the journal ended.
She clapped it shut and once again looked around the room.
Signs of a struggle, maybe even an explosion, were present. As she
began to examine the machine’s wiring, her mind turned briefly to
Big Guy’s comments earlier. How couldn’t she have caught it? She had
heard Big Guy joke like that before, but real robots had to obey the
Three Laws, one being never to harm humans. This included making fun
of humans, and damaging their egos. Still, Lt. Hunter had always
obeyed the Three Laws (with this small exception), even though she
knew the temptation was there. What kind of a man would be able to
suffer so much and obey the Three Laws without fail...not to mention
make up all sorts of goofy little catchphrases! She tried to fight
off a smile and concentrate, but suddenly she was startled by a
thunderous sound. Big Guy had crashed his way through the wall yet
again...and was reaching towards her rather strangely.
"Big Guy, what did I tell you about the walls not being made
out of cookies?" she smiled uneasily.
"Brains." Big Guy grunted.
"Ummm...Big Guy?" Dr. Slate questioned. Big Guy’s hand
scooped her up and held her tight to his chest. "Big Guy, what are
you doing?!" Dr. Slate kicked and screamed, trying to wrestle loose,
to no avail.
"Brains." Big Guy once again rumbled. She quickly surmised
that Lt. Hunter must be suffering under Neugog’s mind control. Dr.
Slate covered her head with her arms as Big Guy crashed through the
window, and just as she was certain they would plunge to the ground,
he rocketed skyward. She fought uselessly within his titan grasp,
and as they came over the top of Quark, she saw the fate that awaited
her -- Neugog was greedily licking his chops, awaiting her arrival.
"Lieutenant Hunter!" she cried, in a last ditch attempt. "I
know you can hear me! Snap out of it!" She banged on the chest plate,
desperately hoping to clear his mind and save them both. Just then,
Rusty swooped down from the sky, startling Neugog momentarily. It was
enough to break his spell on Lt. Hunter.
"Tag team!" Rusty yelled, flying down and grabbing Dr. Slate.
"Huh?" Duane slowly came out of his fog, trying to regain his
bearings. Rooftop...spider? There was no spider. There was at one
point. It seemed he had suffered a temporary blackout. He lifted
his faceplate to rub his aching forehead.
"I’m coming back to base, guys...."
**********************************************
He had only been back on the U.S.S. Dark Horse for
less than 2 minutes when he was suddenly needed again.
"Um, he just got out of the bathroom," he heard Jo saying to
someone on the phone as he walked down from the robot, yanking off
his helmet. She handed the phone to him, mouthing some words he was
too tired to make out.
"Yello. Lieutenant Hunter speaking." He sat on the desk next
to the phone, his short legs dangling off the ground.
"Lieutenant Hunter, this is Dr. Erika Slate." The familiar
female voice answered. Embarrassed about his blackout, Duane
scrambled for an excuse.
"Um, about today, Big Guy had some sort of glitch or
something, but it’s all worked out now...there’s nothing to worry
about. I...."
"Zip it." Her command caught him off guard, and he instantly
shut up. "I need to see you back at Quark immediately. I have
something very important concerning Neugog and the...’glitch’." Her
voice was tainted with urgency. As much as he really didn’t want to
fly back to Quark, he would have to grin and bear it. If she had
worked something out, maybe they could get this spider thing over
and done with, and he could get back to his insomnia.
"You’re the boss, Doc." He exhaled slowly.
"Tor Slate!" she snapped.
"What?" Her statement was odd and caught him unawares. In his
tired mentality, he groped for meaning to her words.
"Doc-Tor Slate. You’ve got the first part down, but you seem
to be struggling with the rest. What’s wrong with you army grunts? Do
you only have one-syllable vocabularies?" she fumed. Oh yes, he was
certainly not looking forward to going back to Quark.
*************************************************
She was waiting for him by the helipad on Quark’s roof, and
as soon as he had parked the helicopter, she wasted no time in
leading him to a secluded annex of her lab. He noticed the halls
were completely deserted, and also caught sight of Rusty lying on a
bed of some sorts in another part of her laboratory.
"Gee, Erika." He decided to dispense with the formalities in
an attempt to make things a little more relaxed. "Are you so sure
you should put the kid down for the night? What if that spider comes
back?"
"Call me Dr. Slate," she coldly replied, ushering him into
the separate room. He furrowed his brow as he took his seat at the
table in the center of the room. "Anyway, Rusty swept the building
in its entirety, and found it empty. Neugog is gone, for now. But I
have something very important to show you." She shut the heavy door
and locked it. From the thickness of the walls, he surmised it was
mostly a soundproof room; perhaps a library since it was lined with
books dealing with her profession. She hauled a heavy case to the
top of the desk, taking her place on the opposite side. She popped
it open, revealing a strange sort of helmet with several
transmitters and coils protruding from the top. She removed it from
the case, and placed it in front of him.
"Wow. Fancy beer helmet. Betcha you could fit a whole
sixpack in there!" he made a weak joke trying to lighten her mood,
but it was lost on her icy façade.
"Nothing so crude." She narrowed her eyes. "This is Neugog’s
telepathy rig. It would amplify his mental powers once it was
coupled with his dynamo, which I found destroyed in his office. I’ve
modified it so that it emits frequencies contrary to the one’s he’s
currently emitting."
"So whoever wears it is safe from his telepathy," he noted.
"Or his mind control." She angled a sharp look at him. Her
eyes pierced his own, and he couldn’t help but stare, affixed to her
intense gaze. "Big Guy can’t afford to be vulnerable to Neugog again."
"I’m...not sure I follow." Duane could feel his pulse thudding
in his ears. Please, not her, a small part of him still found the
need to plead in futility.
"There is one component of the BGY 11 that isn’t mechanical...
The one on the inside." She stared at him sharply, seemingly
disappointed that he didn’t supply her answer without further
prodding, but sat there with a hard, stony, passionless face. She
continued on. "The human factor. You." This elicited a small, yet
perceivably nervous, laugh.
"Um, Erika...." She shot him the look of death. "Dr. Slate,"
he recovered, "I think you’re unclear on the concept: Big Guy’s a
robot!" He waited for her reaction. There’s still time, just don’t
say it, please not her... His mind raced with these wasted
thoughts as adrenaline coursed through his body.
"Look, Lieutenant; we can cut the crap right here, or we can
keep playing games all night. I read the plans, so there’s no use
hiding it from me. Now let’s put everything else aside and work
together to get those people their minds back. I’ve found a way to
reverse the process that I think he’s using and...."
Dr. Slate continued, but Duane could hardly hear over the
frenzied tumult of his own mind. He folded his arms and despondently
looked to the side as she continued on describing her brilliant
ideas. She was exceptionally intelligent, unfortunately to a fault;
now that she had discovered the secret, he feared that the same fate
would befall her as others who had done the same. With a sinking
feeling in his gut, he knew he would have to do it himself, at the
command of the BGY Commission. He had to follow orders, or else he
would be next.
There was that pilot, who had stumbled into the Big Guy bay
by accident, and witnessed Duane getting out of the cockpit...He put
up such a fight, Duane had to order a new flightsuit, since that
Teflon toughness just ate up bloodstains and refused to wash... Then
there was that one time he was forced to emergency eject, and that
kid had followed him into an evacuated quadrant with a video camera,
of all things! She was so young...There were a few others as well
that came back to haunt the little pieces of sleep he could snatch
for himself, and now...and now, Dr. Slate stood next in line.
True, 9 out of 10 times she frustrated him, annoyed him, and
refused all of his attempts to be courteous and civil, but he liked
her, on one level. She was witty, intelligent, and could put up one
hell of a fight. At first, he thought he could perhaps persuade her
to keep silent so he wouldn’t have to...But then he considered that
she would most likely try to help out, as she was doing now, and
sooner or later someone important would find out. Then it would go
straight to the Commission; then they would give him the orders that
he knew he couldn’t perform, though he had no choice. Maybe that
could be her saving grace -- maybe the BGY commission would recognize
this usefulness and spare her! He considered that now that was the
only option he had, and he hoped to God this plan of hers wouldn’t
fail....
************************************************
Dr. Slate was roused from the nap she had inadvertently
taken in the copter ride over by Duane’s gentle nudging.
"Dr. Slate, we’re here." He shifted his shoulder, which she
suddenly realized she had dozed off on. She shoved him abruptly in
disgust, embarrassed by her own accidental actions. She certainly
hoped that pervert didn’t get the wrong idea! When she looked for
his reaction, his face was just slightly creased in silent
intolerance, which was fine by her. As they landed, she noticed the
many people scrambling about below them.
"Do all of these people know?" she asked incredulously.
"Not a one of them," came Duane’s reply. "General Thornton,
my pit crew, the BGY Commission members, and now you. That’s
everybody in the loop." He smoothly landed the helicopter and
unbuckled his seatbelt.
"Not even Donovan?" Dr. Slate raised her eyebrow, surprised
that the co-owner of the project wouldn’t even be aware of this
secret.
"Not even Rusty. Thornton’s orders," Duane said.
"It’s...not an issue." Dr. Slate removed the helmet he'd let
her borrow.
"It’s not?" Duane’s droopy left eye perked up with his surprise.
"The Big Guy is Rusty’s hero. I’ve decided...I want to keep it
that way," she stated. He nodded, and rushed to the other side of the
helicopter to help her out. Though he politely held his hand out for
her, she simply threw him the suitcase containing Neugog’s telepathy
rig and demanded to climb out on her own.
Now she’s being unnecessarily rude! Duane smirked to
himself. Not like I have to guess why. You’d think she’d be able
to look past my ass-face.... he bitterly thought, despising his
perceived ugliness as he did in his weaker moments. Well, maybe he
wasn’t much to look at, inside and out. After all, he hadn’t exactly
been a sweet peach to either her or Rusty when he had first met them.
They both had a knack for getting themselves into trouble, but at
least Rusty had proved himself in the last battle they had against a
surprisingly difficult foe -- the mysterious robot named Argo. Duane
was still awed that Rusty had the presence of mind to convince Argo
to take Rusty’s faulty powerpack in a trick that successfully ended
up destroying the enemy completely. As he pressed his palm into the
scanner that gave him access to the Big Guy bay, he was certain Dr.
Slate would prove herself as well. She would have to.
"You’d think a 10 foot bug would be easy to spot..." Jo peered
into a computer screen, monitoring for any signs of Neugog-related
activities.
"Why bother? Tin Man’s useless against it. Need a scarecrow --
no brains," Mack grumbled, digging through a tool chest.
"Hmm...No brains, eh? Maybe it’s time for Duane’s little robot
buddy to fly solo!" Garth chuckled, taking the tool from Mack to work
on the inside of the cockpit.
"That won’t be necessary." The pit crew turned from their
task to find Duane marching into the bay, Dr. Slate close behind him.
"Dame on deck!" Jo shouted, tossing her jacket up to Garth
for him to cover the exposed cockpit with. Garth scrambled out of
the cockpit and threw his own jacket over it as well. Mack removed
his hat in the presence of a lady and smoothed his hair back with a
handful of spit.
"Cool jets, gang; she knows." Duane walked to the base of the
ladder leading to Big Guy with Dr. Slate cowering behind him. She
couldn’t help but feel intimidated by their harsh stares.
"Goodnight, nurse!" Mack pressed his hat back on his head.
"You told her, Assface?!" Garth angrily descended the ladder
to join the rest.
"She wormed it out of him!" Jo sneered, crossing her arms
over her chest.
"Dr. Slate here has been working on our bug problem, and we
are going to give her our kind attention." Duane turned to face Dr.
Slate. "Lay it on us, Doc."
She suddenly fell silent, not even protesting his little
nickname. As she stood there mutely clutching the case with the
telepathy rig in front of her and swallowing dryly, her eyes wandered
over each of the pit crew (all staring at her with impatient
disapproval) recalling their biographies from the BGY 11 website.
Garth Stewart stood towering over Duane, a huge U.S. Marine who had
been enlisted in the BGY Project because he was one of the few people
who could tolerate the pressures of being inside of Big Guy. She sort
of wondered how he would fit into the cockpit, being that he was well
over six feet and rippling with muscles, while Duane was 5’1" and
rather lean. "Mack" Forwards had been with the project since
conception and had the best grasp of Big Guy’s insides, which was
extremely useful since the original blueprints had disappeared with
Dr. Poindexter. His gruff attitude hid the fact he was a brilliant
robotics whiz. Jo Werth’s profile was the strangest out of all of
them. She had been serving in the air force as a plane mechanic, but
she had been chosen for this job not on this merit but somewhat in
part for the fact she was female. Apparently, Duane had had some sort
of nervous breakdown at one point in this project, and it was
suggested that a female presence would ease his discomfort. Dr. Slate
wondered if it had worked.
She continued to stare blankly at them in fear, a little
amused noting that Duane was much smaller than all of them, and he
looked rather cute and doll-like in contrast. He seemed to be the
only one not pissed off at her at the moment. Unfortunately, the pit
crew’s antagonism intimidated her into silence, and in turn, her
silence angered the pit crew, thus seeming as if the circle would
never be broken.
"Hey, great plan!" Jo said snidely. "What’s with this chick?
Is she going to stare at us all night?"
"Whuzzamatter, cat got your tongue?" Mack chortled.
"I’m sure she’s just a little shy. This is a pretty big deal
and you guys aren’t helping!" Duane said in her defense. Then, to
Erika, "Look, don’t let these guys scare you. They’re just big
pussycats. If you want, I’ll flip Garth over my shoulder to show you
what pushovers they are..." He smiled his broken smile, trying to
ease her distress.
"No way, man!" Garth snorted. Erika pondered taking Duane up
on the offer, just to see if he could (though she gauged from Garth’s
reaction that it wouldn’t have been the first time), then shook
herself of that thought and concentrated on her presentation.
"I have a plan." She finally found her voice. "I’m betting
Neugog is going to make an appearance at the science expo tomorrow,
the biggest gathering of minds in a decade. Using his own modified
telepathy rig, we can counteract his mind control and telepathy. We
need to use only non-lethal tactics on Neugog to be able to detain
him so we can study what exactly happened, then see if there’s any
hope to extract the victims' brainwaves. The expo begins at 7 pm
tomorrow night, so we have plenty of time to work on this project,
but no real way to test if it will work. We will simply have to send
Lieutenant Hunter into the field with blind faith." She looked up at
them, her anxiety slowly waning.
"Well, it wouldn’t be the first time." Garth patted Duane on
the head, yawned in a grandiose manner, then leaned on him with his
elbow, as if he were a small table for him. Duane simply grinned and
shrugged.
"Lemme get a good look at your little thingy...." Mack grasped
for the Neugog rig with greedy hands. He lumbered over to a table and
took it out of its case, curiously and thoroughly inspecting it.
"Mack, be careful with that thing, you senile old coot!" Jo
called, to which Mack replied with his middle finger raised in the
air. "If you don’t keep your eye on him, he’ll probably take it apart
and put it back together again, like, twenny times tonight!" she said
to Dr. Slate. Erika wouldn’t even know how to begin to object.
"Maybe you should just leave it alone, Mack." Duane spoke up
from below Garth’s arm. "You know..." He turned to look at Erika.
"...if you say we’ve got till 7 pm tomorrow, maybe we should just
get some sleep so we can be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. You can
explain more about the rig tomorrow morning."
"Ooh, this little toadstool is so comfy, I could just go to
sleep right here!" Garth announced, folding his arms on Duane’s head
and burying his face in them. Duane rolled his eyes as Garth made
loud snoring sounds.
"You asked for it!" Duane warned, grasping Garth’s forearm
with one hand and planting the other in his gut. Garth had little
time to yelp in protest before he was easily lifted and thrown over
Duane’s shoulder.
"ASSFACE!" Jo jogged over to where Garth lay sprawled on the
ground. "Quit trying to show off for your girlfriend!" She grabbed
Garth by his well-muscled arm and jerked him to his feet. Duane
simply shrugged, a little self-satisfied smile playing at the corners
of his mouth. Erika couldn’t help but feel a little impressed with
this sudden display but she recognized it less as a show of strength
and more as a show of skill. She was also rather happy to be a quiet
observer of these interactions, and found it infinitely fascinating.
She made a mental note to ask Duane about the origins of his curious
nickname at a better time.
"Is it too late for you to fly me back to Quark?" she
questioned as Duane started guiding her to one of the exits.
"Oh, it’s much too late for that. You can sleep in my
quarters, just for tonight." He knew it would do no good to have
Erika running free with his little secret in her head and decided to
detain her until the BGY Commission made their decision. At this
thought, his heart sank, ever so slightly.
"Wait, I don’t want to sleep in your quarters!" Erika
sputtered. "Can’t I sleep with Jo?"
"No way, chicky!" Jo called.
"I’m not going to be in them! Jeez!" Duane pushed his hand
into another palmprint reading device that opened a doorway lined
with their quarters. Erika noted that the Big Guy bay was a
self-contained unit, almost completely separate from the rest of the
ship, and such devices guarded the only ways out. Duane pushed open
his door, which was seemingly unlocked, though it, too, had a
scanner by the entrance.
"I’m going to sleep in Big Guy, probably. It wouldn’t be the
first time." He flipped a switch, playing light all over the
bachelor pad he inhabited. "Oh, crap, um...why don’t you just sit on
the bed while I clean up? I’m such a dirty man, I never really clean
my room since I’m barely in it...." he sheepishly added, scrambling
to tidy the place up. He lifted a suitcase off of a tiny, messy bed
and dumped the clothes that were inside of it into a drawer
unceremoniously, and then slammed it shut, disturbing the piles of
books on top of the compact chest of drawers. As he scrambled about
collecting undershirts and underwear that littered the floor like
fresh snow, she examined the objects on the chest of drawers. There
was an enormous stack of books that ran the gamut from ancient
literature to pulp fiction with such selections as "The Complete
Mythology of Ancient Greece", "Poems of Emily Dickenson", "Fishboy",
"Selected Tales of the Marquis De Sade", "I Robot", and on the very
top, a well-worn nickel novel entitled "Strange and Mysterious Life"
that featured what appeared to be a scantily clad torch singer
threatened by a clunky, laughable red robot. She realized there were
scores of piles of books accumulated in almost every corner in the
apartment.
"You can read any of that. I have a pretty good collection. I
like to have a lot of variety." His statement startled her briefly
as he passed by her with armfuls of his underthings. He headed into
the bathroom to throw them in the clothes hamper. "Whoops!" she
heard from the bathroom, which was then accompanied by a flush. She
continued to examine the objects as he scrubbed at his sink. There
was a toy model of a rocket ship poised between two pictures, one of
which must have been taken the day he graduated from flight training.
He stood out among his classmates as the smallest of the large group,
standing quite handsomely in his dress uniform. The other one only
inflamed her curiosity to unbearable proportions and she snatched it
up and joined him in the bathroom.
"Is this....?" She wasn’t sure how to begin. "Is this your
wife and child? Are you married?" she inquired in disbelief,
thrusting the photo forward. He turned sharply, caught by surprise,
but soon relaxed as he examined the picture.
"I sure hope not!" he chuckled. "This is my sister Darlene,
and Jeffy, my nephew." He fondly fingered the photo. It was taken
recently, as evident by the condition of his appearance. In it, he
stood in front of an idyllic two-story suburban house, complete with
tire swing. He was posed with a leggy brunette, each of them
clutching a small blonde boy by the hands. Dr. Slate peered at the
scene from his side, noting the glowing, doting expression that had
crept across his face. He sighed and looked up at another framed
picture nestled between a half-eaten box of cornflakes and a beer
can with a plastic flower in it on a shelf mounted on the bathroom’s
wall, this one taken a little earlier. Duane was holding an infant
Jeffy on his lap in a fighter jet, and had placed his leather helmet
and goggles on the child’s head. The expression he wore in the photo
was much like the one he had now -- utter, beaming adoration. "They’re
pretty much the only family I have. I feel kind of bad for Jeffy
sometimes because his dad’s a traveling salesman, and he doesn’t get
to see him that often. That, and his uncle’s in the military...." His
voice attained a certain sadness for a brief moment, but he shook it
off. "Luckily, his birthday’s next month, and I get to see him
again." The conversation seemed to have ended for now, and he went
back to scrubbing the countertop in silence.
She replaced the photo and sat back on the bed, removing her
shoes. Pity for Lt. Hunter appeared to come a little too easily for
her, and she dispersed her sympathy. What was the point? She was
certain he was aware that this life didn’t have room for
relationships, families, etc., just as her own life was too busy to
bother with human relations. It was certainly not as demanding as Lt.
Hunter’s; however, it was sufficiently taxing. Maybe, to some degree,
she felt the need to push those who wished to be closer to her away.
Then she couldn’t help but shudder as she considered those
who wished to be closer to her -- there was dirty old Huckle, the
purveyor of office porn, who kept mailing her images of his Xeroxed
butt or files with other such disturbing photos. Every time he made
Tekkie of the Month or some other meaningless award, his ego swelled
to enormous proportions and he seemed to think he could lay claim to
her, as if she was some sort of property to be bandied about. Then
there was Donovan, who had gotten a little too touchy-feely ever
since he could threaten her with Rusty’s demise. How much longer
could she refuse his advances before he led the naïve little
automaton into the robot demolition room, like a demented pied piper?
She longed for the good old days, when the worst he could do was make
a sexist comment in her direction. The more she thought of these and
other idiots who had pursued her in unsavory manners simply because
she was female, the easier it was to feel less and less for Lt.
Hunter. As she stared at him putting countless jars of "Icy Hot" in
the bottom cabinets in the bathroom, she suspected the worst from
him, for there was no point in her mind to consider him as having
friendly intentions. She felt herself grow cold.
"You’re all set." Duane reemerged, smelling of scrubbing
bubbles, and dug through the clothes he had dumped in the drawer
earlier. He extracted a pair of boxers and a dark green t-shirt and
handed them to her. "You can sleep in these. I don’t really have any
other jammies for you."
"Thank you, Lt. Hunter," Dr. Slate replied, her eyes frostily
scrutinizing him.
"You know, you can call me Duane if you’d like," Duane
offered, trying to make their exchanges a little less stressed and
formal.
"Goodnight, Lt. Hunter," came her only reply. He swallowed
his anger as he exited the room, locking it on the way out.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to eject all of his resentment and
disappointment at being treated so poorly by her, and yet he still
came back for more. When would he learn his lesson? What was even
the point to try to be decent to her, if she was going to treat him
like this? That, coupled by the fact that she might soon disappear at
his hands dissipated almost all resolve to continue being courteous.
Lost in these thoughts, he was a bit surprised to see all of the pit
crew gathered in the small kitchenette adjacent to their work area.
They each met him with a grim expression, which was no surprise. He
pulled out a chair and took his seat to address them all.
"Before you jump to conclusions," he began, "I want you to
know that I had nothing to do with her sudden acquisition of
knowledge. So, Jo, ye of little faith, she did not ‘worm’ anything
out of me!" He shot Jo a harsh glance.
"I’m just saying, she’s a pretty girl, and being you’re so
hard up for friends..." Shrugging, she returned his glare.
"Remind me to tell you about the Japanese torture camps
sometime," he retorted sarcastically.
"Regardless," Garth broke in, "what are we going to do about
this security breach?"
"We better first find out just how she got a-hold of our
little secret," Mack added, knocking back a lukewarm cup of coffee.
"First, we report to the Commission," Duane announced, causing
a silence among them as they each considered what that meant. "Then
we go from there. No other person has stepped forward so far with
this knowledge, and she made it seem as if Rusty didn’t know either,
so it looks like we may only have one person in the know. Besides
the spider."
"The spider?" Jo sat up.
"Sure. The spider has to know, having mind readin’ powers and
all that. The thing is, I consider that less of a security breach,
because who’s going to stay around long enough to hear a giant,
hungry bug spill some sort of wacko story about the Big Guy not being
a real ‘bot?" Mack interjected.
"Well, that won’t be much of a problem, come tomorrow!" Garth
smugly stated.
"Nope. Gotta use kid gloves on the bug. Doctor’s orders."
Duane shook his head.
"Is she serious?" Jo bellowed.
"You gotta be kiddin’ me!" Mack slapped his forehead in disbelief.
"What? Is she crazy?!" Garth almost jumped out of his seat.
"Look. She has this plan to get everyone’s brains back...."
Duane felt his argumentative powers waning under the onslaught of
fatigue. "I don’t know how she plans to do this, but I think that
these are some of America’s brightest and best minds, and if she can
find a way to do that, we should support her completely. It might
take a little more time than if we just went ahead and blew this guy
to smithereens, but it’s worth it in the long run." He paused for a
moment. "And maybe, this can prove to the Commission that she’s worth
keeping around. I think we can use a scientist to work with us
directly on this team, instead of having to rely on other far-removed
sources." Another calm settled around as they weighed the pros and
cons of Duane’s conviction.
"I’m going to go report to the Commission. We should all try
to get some rest." Duane suddenly rose to his feet and left the room,
leaving them in silence.
********************************************
Erika peeled her face off of the austere pillow as she
finally, consciously acknowledged the faint tapping at the door. She
barely had time to do anything more, for the door gave a little beep
and opened, revealing a slightly apprehensive Duane.
"What do you want?" she groggily asked the curious lieutenant.
"Well, you weren’t answering when I knocked on the door, so I
just decided to come and wake you up. It’s already 0900 hours!" He
fully entered and stood expectantly at the doorway. Already...? He
acted as if he had been up and at ‘em for hours! Judging by his crisp
appearance -- fresh, army-ration dark grey tee disappearing into the
waist of his olive pants, which in turn were tucked into impeccably
shining combat boots -- it wasn’t difficult to conclude that this was
the situation. She realized that except for the shaft of fluorescent
light from the hallway, the room was still pitch black since it lay
so deep within the ship. She therefore couldn’t discern night from
day. Mumbling to herself, she decided there was no point to staying
in bed any further, and emerged from the cocoon she had made from the
Spartan hunter green sheets. In her bare feet, she made her way down
the corridor, brushing her unruly mane from her face, squinting as
her eyes adjusted to the harsh light. Duane directed her past the pit
crew in the main area, who looked on with dour expressions as they
worked on the exposed arm artillery of the massive robot, and into
the small kitchenette. She plunked into a flimsy metal folding chair
with a squeak and sat at the matching table, waiting to be served,
which Duane immediately set about doing. Rubbing his freshly shaven
chin, he doubtfully inspected the bowels of the miniscule fridge
crammed into a corner of the kitchen.
"Hmm. Looks as if the pit crew cleaned this place out. I’ll
make you some coffee, if you like." He filled a mug with water and
placed it in the microwave.
"I truly prefer tea, if you have it," she stated.
"What a coincidence! I prefer tea as well, it’s just that
everyone around here loves coffee, and I can barely stand it. At
least no one depletes my little reserve of tea, but when we’re out to
sea, it can go quicker than you imagine. I’m so used to having to
ration it!" He retrieved the steaming cup of water from the microwave.
"Luckily, though, since we’re situated near New Tronic for now, we
can easily send choppers over with grocery lists. In fact, I think
the pit crew might have sent someone today. There’s no telling what
they’ll get, or if they’ll share, so we’re on our own." He gave a
lopsided smile as he handed her the mug and a plain tea bag, plus
two individual sugar packets, and a spoon. It seemed as if the
condiments, like the rest of this area, were completely
self-contained. He suddenly hopped onto the countertop to better
reach the highest cabinets, the lowest of which he could never reach
from the ground. As she mixed the ingredients together, she watched
with amusement at he scooted about on his knees, craning his neck as
he searched the three shelves.
"Usually, they’ve got some Pop Tarts or something hidden back
here, where they think I can’t get to it. I’m not allowed to have
too many sweets. Actually, I had a ferocious sweet tooth, until it
got knocked outta me!" He leaned back grinning to expose the empty
socket in his teeth. Dr. Slate gave no reaction, which he took as
silent disgust. He was so used to making fun of himself to relax
other people, he was easily dismayed when it didn’t work. He didn’t
want her pity, if that was what was on her mind! Either that, or she
doesn’t have a sense of humor, he concluded. He went back to
searching the barren cabinets, throwing wasted thoughts away.
"Midget! What’re you doin’ up there?" Jo appeared at the door,
startling both the sleepy Dr. Slate and Duane alike. He jumped off
the counter as she strutted over to him with a box hidden behind her
back. "Our chopper just got back from New Tronic, and I gotcha a
little somethin’..." She thrust the package at Duane, who met the
present with mixed reactions. "Here’s some Dunkin’ Donuts munchkins
for my little munchkin!" She patted his head condescendingly.
"Oh, you think you’re so big just ‘cause you’ve got 4 inches
on me," Duane jokingly replied.
"Hey, if you’re going to be ungrateful, I’ll take those back
and steal your Lucky Charms!" She stuck out her tongue as she left,
suppressing snickers. Shaking his head, he took a seat across from
Dr. Slate and pushed the box of sweets towards her.
"I guess this is it as far as breakfast goes for right now."
He knitted his fingers together on the table.
"How...How can you let them pick on you like that?" Erika
questioned.
"Aw, it’s nothing! It actually helps to relieve the tension,"
he answered with a little smile and a small wave of his burned hand.
"Why do you let them call you....?"
"Assface?"
"Yes." She sipped her tea deeply, waiting for the explanation.
"Uh, they, um, call me Assface because...well, see this scar
right here?" He indicated the scar that ran from the tip of his
knobby nose into his greying hairline, directly in the middle of his
face. "I guess they think my face has a, um, well, an ass crack in
it. After living with all of these sailors, we all tend to use rough
language," he sheepishly added.
"I don’t mind." She looked into the swirling warm brown
liquid in her mug and chewed on a powdered donut hole as she
considered how to phrase her next question. As if on cue, he
answered it for her.
"You know," he began, "it’s actually a funny story, how I got
this particular scar." He briefly ran some fingers through his dark
hair, which he had already molded into its trademark curl with some
sort of thick pomade. She listened intently. "The guys out there were
playing this really stupid joke on me -- they stole my helmet, and
were playing ‘keep away’ up on the tarmac, when, before you know it,
Mack fumbles, and it heads straight into the drink! Of course, the
siren goes off just then,"
"Of course," she added, engrossed with his story.
"Of course! And I had to go in without my helmet. What’s worse
is that since they were too busy horsing around, they left this panel
sort of half-done in the cockpit, so, the robot gets slammed from the
front, the panel slides out and bam!" He jabbed his thumb right
between his eyes. "I end up with an Assface. I let them call me that
because...I know they have tremendous guilt about the whole thing. If
it helps them get rid of some of that guilt, I’m happy to help. And
you know, it’s not like I don’t tease them back." At this point, it
was all Erika could do to keep her raging curiosity in check. She
didn’t want to be rude and press further, but she was brimming with
questions and they each felt like little insects crawling on her
skin. Again, he seemed as if he read her mind.
"If you want to know about any other scars, feel free to ask.
I don’t mind answering them. I’m not self-conscious, really," he
offered. She jumped at the opportunity, and scooted her chair closer
to his to better examine him. He couldn’t help but note that his
pulse quickened at the prospect that she might touch him, and he
scolded himself for such an idiotic response. He couldn’t believe the
flames of desire this possibility fanned within him -- the desire for
human contact that wasn’t a firm handshake, or a swift pat on the
back, or some sort of condescending gesture. He wanted something
gentle, friendly -- a woman’s touch. But what touch could this woman
provide? She simply wanted to poke and probe his various deformities,
like the true scientist she was. This woman -- Who was she, to
inspire such stupidity in him?
She, regrettably, was what he most wanted in a companion. She
was incredibly intelligent, feisty, quick-witted -- not to mention
extremely beautiful. Sure, she had a gorgeous figure in her stark,
lovely lab coat, but this morning, seeing her small frame engulfed in
his tee shirt, her shapely, petite legs exposed so openly underneath
his boxers, perfectly eye level with him on her tiny bare feet, which
were sticking to the cold metal floor -- he could scarcely fight off
feelings of want and longing escorting her to the kitchen. He could
hardly drown those feelings now, at this moment, when she peered at
him through her misaligned spectacles, in her adorably unkempt
appearance, reaching towards him with tiny, toffee-colored hands. He
was consumed by such irrational, raging emotions. He gathered his
wits, reminding himself how much she actually hated him, how
pointless it would be to feel anything for anyone, even if there was
the remote possibility that it would be reciprocated. He managed a
credible pokerface, and braced for impact. His body jolted with
electricity as the tips of her curious fingers skimmed the remains
of his mangled ear.
"What happened here?" She examined the gnarled flesh
surrounding his auditory hole.
"Oh, um." He was thankful his voice didn’t crack like
weakened glass. "I got that in Japan. I don’t know if you want to
hear the story...." He trailed off.
"Tell me." She affixed her hazel gaze on his wavering eyes.
"Well. They were trying to get us to say more than just our
names and numbers, in this...place. A prison camp. It was my turn,
and they were incredibly hard on me, because I was a squad leader
and I was privy to more sensitive information. These guys strung me
upside down, and started whipping me and...at this point, we’d been
in there for a while, and most of our clothes, except for the bare
essentials were gone..." His throat dried up, making his words
harder to form. Dr. Slate held the tips of his fingers with her own.
"Blood started running into my eyes, and all I wanted was for it to
end, but I knew that if I gave up any information -- information
that was months old, that I didn’t even know if it was still valid --
that they would have gained a small victory.
"The camp commander had this really ugly dog that he carried
around everywhere. It was a -- what do you call them? A pug, I
think...? Those dogs with squished faces, with those stupid yappy
voices. The commander orders one of his guys to slice my ear, just
enough to make it bleed, and he drops his little mongrel...He said
something in Japanese to the little mutt, and suddenly it just starts
tearing my ear apart. And that was that." His voice hardened, but his
eyes looked haunted and hollowed. "Go on asking me questions, I don’t
mind answering them at all."
She tried to rouse herself from the grief his story inspired
and realized she was holding his right hand. This was the hand that
was covered with an enormous burn, which she could see more entirely
due to the fact he was wearing a short-sleeved tee shirt. Her fingers
traced over the bubbled skin, unknowingly sending tingles down his
spine.
"What happened here?" She closely examined the ruptured,
discolored flesh.
"Oh, that. Remember that toxic sea monster, about 3 years ago?
It had this gland in the back of its head that was full of some sort
of acidic poison. Of course, I didn’t know this until it was too
late, so I grab it by the tail, yank it onto the beach, and start
bashing it around on the jagged rocks. This gland breaks, spraying
all of this stuff all over the Big Guy. It can’t eat through steel or
anything, but it starts leaking through the right side, which had
already sustained a lot of damage. At this point, the monster was as
good as dead, so I had some time to notice that this gooey stuff was
sort of sizzling on my sleeve, and I could feel it, all prickly,
running into my glove. Thinking it was some sort of poison, and
rightfully so, I grab my emergency water that I can use to flush
this sort of stuff off, and I start hosing my arm off. Little did I
know, that this acid was practically activated by water, and it
starts eating through my suit, and eventually through my arm as soon
as the water hits it. That was the longest flight home, let me tell
you. I’m actually very lucky, because my flightsuit was resilient
enough to take most of the punishment, and I avoided more serious
nerve and muscle tissue damage. It’s all mostly superficial. The
only real side effect is that sometimes my skin isn’t as sensitive
to temperature, or pain." He rolled his sleeve up to expose more. It
ran almost all the way up to his shoulder. Certainly he could stick a
pin in his warped skin and barely feel it, but her fingertips lightly
touching his arm were intense and magnified. Those fingertips danced
right past his shoulder up by his neck, where a huge gash had once
been, evident by the puckered pink skin left over.
"Careful, I’m ticklish there!" He jerked his head a little to
the side.
"Sorry." She withdrew her fingers. "What about this?"
"Big Guy got smashed on the side of the mountain, and one of
my screens blew out as a result. Some glass zipped by, just missing
my artery." He fingered the mark himself.
"What about your nose?" She pressed a finger to the tip of
his nose, drawing a strange sort of smirk from him.
"In brief, it’s been broken in one bike crash, one bar fight,
two officer scuffles, and three Big Guy battles." He counted on his
fingers. "It doesn’t even faze me any more. Honest to peaches."
"That’s cute. ‘Honest to peaches’." He caught a glimpse of her
own smile as her eyes searched the rest of his face. He supposed he
was just quaint enough to amuse her with his country boy/old-fashioned
dialect tendencies. "How about the case of the missing eyebrow piece?"
She rubbed her thumb across the patch of bare flesh between two dark
tufts of eyebrow.
"That’s nothing. It got skimmed off by a pointy part of the
cockpit. It never grew back. You wanna hear the real tragedy?" He
tilted his head forward, pointing to the crown. "I’m only 34, and
already I’m going bald. I think it’s from the helmet rubbing the top
of my head all of the time. I wear a head cover, but I don’t think
it helps. I’m also getting all of these grey hairs from all of the
stress."
"It’s sounds like it’s more hazardous to be inside of Big Guy
than on the outside!" she stated.
"Sometimes," he simply replied. Her hands explored the length
of his left arm, skipping over what seemed to be more minor injuries.
As she turned his left arm over, she was confronted with a most
gruesome injury. She turned his right arm over as well, holding both
fast to the table, and confirmed her suspicions. Two extensive scars,
long healed, ran lengthwise from just before the crook of his arm
ending at his wrist. These were the obvious scars of an attempted
suicide, by someone who knew what they were doing.
"What about these?" she asked gravely. Unlike before, he no
longer wanted to meet her eyes.
"Those were an accident." He retracted his hands from her
grasp, and stood as if to leave.
"We need to focus on the problem at this point. Let’s not
waste any more time. I’m going to work with the pit crew on some
more effective artillery, and you’d better figure out how to get the
brain waves out of Neugog’s noggin." He hardly paused before exiting
and making his way back to the work area.
*******************************************
This had to be the lousiest job in the universe! Dr. D
could’ve gotten a trained monkey to hold up his stupid note cards
for him! Sure, she was a monkey, but she wasn’t his slave, and she
certainly wasn’t trained. Switching another card for Donovan and
crammed onto the top of the podium, Jenny thought of all of the more
important things she could be doing. In fact, she had kept up with
Ellerby’s work since she and Dr. D took over Quark, and she knew this
stuff much better than he did, and he had the added benefit of having
note cards in front of him!
She was cramped and inconvenienced, but she had to admit,
this job carried at least one perk -- watching Dr. D botch this speech
beyond recognition! She swore she could hear some of the scientists
listening to him at the expo snicker and crack jokes at his expense.
The big lummox.... Jenny waited till he had exited the stage after
finishing up with Ellerby’s famous formula that had taken him a
decade to perfect and had taken Dr. D 10 minutes to destroy, and
jumped from the podium to join him backstage.
"They’re hailing my genius, Jenny!" Donovan basked in what he
considered unquestioning adoration but was actually confused mumbling
and polite clapping.
"Brilliant to present Dr. Ellerby’s work as your own!" Jenny
scampered up his coat and took her place on his shoulder.
"Ellerby’s too busy drooling on his shirt to mind!" he
gleefully chuckled as he headed further into the recesses of the
backstage area.
"You may have stolen Ellerby’s ideas," a familiar, German
voice hissed from the darkness "but I have Ellerby’s thoughts!" The
mutated Dr. Neugog emerged from behind an empty crate to the
sickening pitter-pat of giant spider legs.
"Neugog!" Donovan and Jenny shrieked in unison.
"What do you say to that?" Neugog advanced on his hapless
victims, both rooted to the spot with terror.
"You’re...looking good....?" Donovan weakly quipped, trembling
in fear as Neugog extended the greasy tentacle of his lower mouth
and waved it over Donovan’s face.
"Food for thought?" the spider slimily inquired, quickly
wrapping the feeler around Donovan. Jenny leapt from his shoulder
and scampered to a nearby corner.
"Jenny, do something!" Donovan cried from within the insect’s
clutches. Jenny almost turned tail and ran, but then thought about
poor, dependent Donovan, too stupid to help himself. And he owed her
20 bucks.
"Oh, you don’t really want to snack on his empty skull, do
you? The most you could use it for is for making cobwebs in it. He
really just sponges off the brilliance of others, everybody knows
that." Jenny offered his best defense. Neugog threw Donovan to the
ground momentarily at Jenny’s feet, his slippery tentacle clenching
and unclenching around his flailing body.
"I’m going to suck him dry anyways." Neugog leaned closer.
"Why?" Donovan blubbered.
"I don’t liiiike you," he ominously answered. He suddenly
paused, sniffing the air, and turned his attention away from them.
"Mmm! Trigonometry!" he exclaimed, shuffling towards Dr. Patterson,
who had just concluded his speech and wandered into the same area. A
cry for help had barely formed in the ill-fated scientist’s throat
before he was felled by the giant spider and sucked dry. Donovan and
Jenny wasted no time and quickly made their escape. Someone must have
seen Neugog this time, because the alarm went off in the building,
and most of the exits were shut off, save for one, which was the main
route of evacuation for the scientists gathered there. Unfortunately,
Donovan and Jenny were trapped in the exhibition room.
"HALP!" Donovan started screaming and running in circles, like
the immense moron he was. Jenny smacked a hand over his mouth and
abruptly yanked his hair to get him to stop moving.
"Listen," she hissed in his ear, "our best bet is to keep our
pieholes shut, and maybe try to hide, because your stupid behavior
will only get us killed." She slowly removed her hand and sat on his
heaving shoulder, his eyes wide and white staring at her in moist
fear. He scampered to a corner behind one of Quark’s robots loaned
to the exposition and began fumbling with the back.
"What are you doing?!" Jenny gasped in anxiety, her simian
fingers digging into his suit’s shoulder pads.
"M-M-Maybe we can turn one of these things on!!" he stammered,
jamming wires together.
"That’s it. We’re monster kibble." Jenny resigned herself with
a desolate sigh. Why didn’t that man ever follow her orders? The
tapping of insect legs was heard from above. They both looked up to
see Neugog perched above them, hanging nimbly from a decorative
sculpture.
"Thought I might find you here!" he chuckled as he descended
upon them. "I’m psyyyyyychic!" He leaned closely so that their faces
were almost touching.
"See ya!" Jenny leapt from Donovan’s shoulder and hit the
ground running, never once looking back. She lamented the loss of
her boss as she could hear the spider sucking away at his empty
cranium. All of a sudden, a thunderous crash knocked her off of her
feet, and she looked back to see the Big Guy drop from the skylight
amid a rain of glinting glass.
********************************************
Duane was glad, in a strange sort of way, that Neugog had
finally reared his ugly head, because another moment trapped in the
Legend One with Rusty and his endless, mind-numbing chatter would be
excruciating in the extreme. Once he had a clear shot through the
skylight, he crashed through the glass and planted the Big Guy’s
feet squarely into the spider’s back, his legs splaying around his
flattened body. Rusty had the presence of mind to scoop Donovan and
Jenny up and fly them away to a secure location.
With civilians out of the way, he got down to business. Neugog
flung his tentacles at him, but instead of retracting, he met the
limbs with his own hands, and grasping them firmly, used them to
fling Neugog through a display. The giant insect’s body lay
motionless among the debris, and seemed to be down for the count.
That was too easy! Duane smirked to himself as he
walked to robot over to where Neugog lay eerily still. Of course,
nothing is so easy. In an instant, Neugog re-animated and retaliated
by striking him with a staggeringly strong limb that sent him
tumbling to the ground. Rusty, who had been watching obediently,
suddenly dove towards the back of the spider’s massive head.
"I see a soft spot!" he cried out, preparing to strike. Neugog
abruptly turned and Rusty was caught in mid-air by Neugog’s limb,
throwing him through a wall.
"They don’t get it!!!" Neugog triumphantly announced, slinking
over to the felled robot. "I’m psyyyyyyyychic!!!" he proudly
proclaimed. His gloat was interrupted by the clicking of heavy
artillery. "Uh oh," he managed weakly in the brief instant before Big
Guy unleashed his massive arsenal. Though his body was bulletproof,
he staggered under the oppressive hail of bullets, and finally
collapsed to his knees. Duane eased off of the trigger for an
instant, letting the smoke clear around Neugog’s body.
"You won’t be doing that again!" Neugog hissed. Then he gained
a strange gleam in his pupilless shiny red eyes. "Take the boy robot
in your clutches and destroy him, then, destroy yourself!" he
commanded.
Duane smirked. "The helmet’s working!" He nodded to Dr. Slate,
who had joined Jo at the monitor. He opened fire once again. Rusty
zipped around Neugog, taunting him.
"Your mind control-thingy won’t work! We’re robots! We don’t
have brains!" he then paused, considering his words. "Not that we’re
not smart...." Neugog took advantage of his momentary hesitation and
once again smacked him with his leg. Rusty went flying into an
overhead decorative globe emblazoned with the words 'technology'. As
Rusty plummeted to the ground, the globe, which had been weakened by
the blow, fell on top of him.
Poor scooter, Duane snickered to himself, much to Dr.
Slate’s displeasure. Again, Neugog saw his opportunity in Big Guy’s
distraction and leapt on top of him, wrapping his tentacles about
the robot.
"You’re human! I can smell it!" Neugog snarled in frustration.
"And where there’s a brain," he added ominously, "...there’s pain!"
Suddenly, Duane’s hands were jerked away from the controls. The
tentacles had wormed their way into the cockpit and had wrapped
around his arms, restraining his movements.
"Hull’s breached!" Garth exclaimed, pushing Jo and Dr. Slate
aside.
"I can see that!" Duane wriggled uselessly within the
monster’s grasp.
"Duane, eject!" Jo worriedly commanded.
"No! Rusty will see him!" Dr. Slate cried out.
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