Darkman (8 page)

Yakky found his stopwatch and hung it around his neck while Peyton fiddled with the camera. He posed, and after the strange, waffled-looking pictures rolled out, Peyton began to process them through the computer. Yakky looked on without much obvious interest. Peyton guessed he would last about three weeks before going insane. Oh, well.

He fed electricity to the electrodes on either side of the reservoir tank, or, as Julie liked to say, the ThinkTank-PinkTank, whatever that might mean. While the bullet charge built up he switched on the Bio-Press and let it warm up. This one Julie liked to call the Bio-Mess. It struck him that she had pet names for just about everything, except him. Was that a good sign or a bad one? He had no idea.

He put a hand on the pipette that fed into the Bio-Mess, ready to open it after the bullet charge, nearly two thousand volts, whipped the soup into something more respectable. Yakky yawned and stretched, looking like he could use some more sleep. Peyton shrugged to himself. How come nobody got a kick out of this anymore? Even Julie tended to doze off while the ninety-nine minutes crept along toward inevitable cell fragmentation.

The bullet charge arced noisily through the tank, flashing blue and white, heating the fluid to an instant boil. Peyton opened the pipette, making mental apologies to Michigan Power, which was now operating in the dark. Pink soup flowed over the Bio-Mess’s face, blue sparks dancing over its surface. The tiny pins raised up, forming a perfect likeness of Yakky’s face. When it was dry and the color had changed, he peeled it off and held it up.

“Start timing, Yak.”

Yakky snapped the stopwatch on, looking somewhat green. “Is that what I look like?”

“Yeah, but only if you were skinned. Want to put it on?”

“Not really. What about the hair?”

“Please,” Peyton said, “only one miracle every few years. For now you have to be satisfied with a wig.”

“Eyebrows?”

“Shut up, Yak.”

He shut up.

Peyton trimmed a slice from the chin area, put it in a petri dish, and stuck it under the microscope. He checked it once, seeing what he knew he would see: cohesive cells pulsating with artificial life. Not a bad accomplishment; too bad the damn things went haywire every time. What was causing it?

He spread the face on a steel table that already had thousands of faces and face parts on it. He wiped his hands on his lab coat. “Might as well kick back, Yak. There is absolutely nothing to do but wait.”

And so they waited.

Ninety-eight and a half minutes later Peyton was horsing with the toy drinking bird, watching it bob, bored to death. He took a quick peek through the microscope, stifling a yawn. His empty stomach growled at him, demanding pizza. As usual, the cells were just fine. In a few seconds they would be dead, and then he and Yak would go to Pizza Hut and check out the green peppers.

The overhead light went out suddenly, leaving the room in darkness save for the dull glare from the computer. “Now what?” he muttered. “Must be a fuse.” He clicked the microscope’s light switch; the tiny bulb came alive instantly. Not a fuse, then. He looked up at the ceiling fixture, realizing two things at once: The computer was still on, so it couldn’t possibly be a fuse because this grand manor only had one; and the elderly bulb overhead was black and dirty-looking.

“Have any new light bulbs?” Yakky asked.

“Downstairs in a box, I think. Can you give me the time first?”

Yakky brought the stopwatch close to his eyes. “Ninety-nine minutes, forty seconds.”

“Okay. Put a new light in and we’ll abandon ship.” Out of habit he looked through the microscope one last time, again knowing exactly what he would see: fragmentation, death.

The cells were busily pulsating, looking very healthy.

“Check that time again, Yak. Something’s weird.”

Yak checked it. “Ninety-nine—one hundred minutes.”

“Baloney.” Peyton snagged the watch and dragged it over, towing Yakky along. “Hmm . . . one hundred minutes, sixteen seconds. I need a new stopwatch.” He pressed it to his ear. “Sounds normal. Piece of shit.”

“Want me to chuck it out the window, Dr. Peyton?”

“Nah, I’d rather smash it with a hammer.”

“I could do that. Very gladly.”

Peyton smiled and checked the tissue sample again.

Pulsating.

He checked his wristwatch. Hard to tell. “Are you sure you punched that on at the right time? You didn’t jump the gun, did you?”

“Gun?”

“Never mind. I saw you click it myself.” He looked at the stopwatch again. One-hundred minutes, thirty-two seconds. To the microscope: still pulsating. To the watch: one hundred minutes, forty-five seconds. To the microscope. Yakky was being dragged all over the place but took it like a man.

“Holy cow,” Peyton whispered, suddenly too stunned to move. “The cells are stable. No fragmentation yet. Could it . . .”

He pressed his eyes to the microscope.

Alive. Alive and well.

“I’ve done it,” he said, shaking with excitment. “Yak, old boy—we’ve done it! Take a gander for yourself!”

Yakky bent over and took this strange thing called a gander. The cells were just fine.

“A hundred and one minutes, Yak! I can’t believe it!”

Yakky straightened. “But why now? What is different?”

Peyton shrugged, then looked up at the dead light bulb. “Light,” he breathed, smiling. “It’s the goddamn light, Yak! The cells are photosensitive—have to be. In the dark they don’t fragment.” He hurriedly snapped off the microscope light. “I’ll check it every thirty seconds. Hell, maybe it’s just weak light that destroys the cells. Sunlight might be good for them. This will take some research, but man! Think of it! With just an old photograph we can give burn victims their undamaged faces back!”

Yakky smiled, but it looked slightly off-kilter. “Does this mean we’re done? I have to look for another job?”

“No, no. This is just the beginning. All we’ve got is a piece of the puzzle. There’s still the big question—how to keep the cells stable in normal light. Once we lick that, consider yourself unemployed. Call me in Tahiti sometime.”

He turned the miniature light on, grinning, and peered into the microscope. The cells were slowing. “Baked them in the scope light too long,” he muttered, watching them die and fragment. “Time?”

Yakky looked at the stopwatch. “One hundred and two.”

“That’s three minutes better than ever before. I love it.” He pushed away from the microscope. “They’re all dead now. Let’s knock out the windows and see what sunlight does to them. There’s a crowbar or something downstairs. I’ll whip up a new batch while you demolish the boards. Mind if I use your face again? No, screw it. I’ll make a flat sheet.” He went to the computer and started tapping the keys, feeding new instructions to the Bio-Press, lost to the world. Yakky went downstairs and came back a few minutes later with a rusty tire iron.

“Is this a crowbar?”

Peyton looked up. “Sort of. Give me some light, would you?”

Yakky started downstairs again. “Wait,” Peyton barked. “Not the package of bulbs. Give me real light, sunlight. And a breeze too. This place is broiling me alive.”

Yakky dutifully began to smash the boards away from the windows. Nails squealed and wood splintered. The place began to smell like a lumberyard. Peyton didn’t notice; he had jammed himself into his private world again. When the sheet was ready, he had Yakky start the stopwatch, then placed a sliver under the microscope lens.

It died ninety-nine minutes later.

He tried it again, knowing it was useless; the burn victims would have to spend their lives in a closet. Yakky sat playing with the drinking bird, the only form of recreation available. Peyton put a fresh sliver under the microscope.

It died ninety-nine minutes later.

He told Yakky to board the windows up again, but the phone rang. Julie was calling from her cubbyhole office, and for Peyton and Yakky the world as they knew it ceased to exist.

7

Durant

B
Y THE TIME
the phone had clanged once, Robert G. Durant was at the top of the stairs. The dimness and the ruined step had almost conspired to trip him up, but he caught himself at the last moment and whispered down to his associates—five of them—to avoid the fifth step because there wasn’t one.

Moving remarkably quietly for five small-time crooks and one big fish, they ascended the stairway and crammed themselves into the doorway, looking around with slitted, criminal eyes. Skip was there, one-legged Skip, along with Smiley, a borderline schizophrenic with a fondness for wooden legs with machine guns hidden inside. Rudy Martinez was there, he of the crooked nose and cauliflower ears, features caused by seven years as a boxer in his native Mexico. As he often sadly lamented, he could have been somebody, he could have been a contender.

Pauly was there, along with his permanent indigestion, carrying a bottle of Maalox. His lips were white and chalky with the stuff, but he didn’t mind that much. It made him feel special.

That left nervous Rick, slugging down Valium by the handful and chasing it with bourbon. He did not like crime at all, had no stomach for it, but his only talent was nonstop drinking and there weren’t many ads in the paper for that. As he sadly lamented, he could have been somebody, he could have been a bartender.

Durant saw some Japanese dude trying to board the windows in this dump. Lousy Jap, he thought. He saw a tall man looking around, a telephone cord in his hand, obviously trying to find the phone. That would be Peyton Westlake. It would have made more sense to hijack his girlfriend, Julie Hastings, but she was safe in her office and Durant had no intention of making a scene. Here in this rat hole, though, far from the teeming masses, he could be as loud as he wanted.

He turned and pointed to Martinez. “You handle the Jap,” he whispered as the phone rang for the second time. Martinez’s eyes registered acknowledgment above his mashed and crooked nose. He reached in a pocket and withdrew a small plastic bag, careful not to make it crackle and spoil the whole shebang.

“Smiley,” Durant went on, “you cover our asses in case the dork has a gun or something. Skip, hand him your leg. The rest of you, let’s have some fun.”

They slunk into the lab, quiet as snakes. The phone rang again. Peyton Westlake found it at last, lifted it up, and moved to snatch off the receiver.

“Don’t bother,” Durant said loudly. Westlake flinched in surprise, nearly dropping the phone. That made Durant feel good. “Put it down, Doc. We have some business to discuss. Pauly, stop guzzling that chalk water and introduce us.”

Pauly stepped forward, jamming the bottle in a back pocket. “Name’s Pauly. Hi.”

He punched Peyton in the face, knocking him across a lab table. Glassware shattered on the floor. Peyton flipped over the table and landed hard on his back. Pauly hauled him upright and slammed him against a wall.

Nervous Rick, still in the doorway, watched this with huge eyes, began feeding himself Valium.

Durant put a cigar between his teeth and pulled out his trimmer. It glittered savagely on a bright ingot of sunlight shafting through a window. He raised it and expertly snipped a bit off the end, then licked the whole cigar before reversing it. “Havana,” he said, feeling tough because he
was
tough. “Castro’s grandma rolled it.”

His men laughed, except Rick and Martinez. Rick was draining a bottle of Ten High whiskey; Martinez was stuffing the Jap’s head into a clear plastic bag, much to the Jap’s discomfort and despite his protests.

Peyton had slumped to his knees after the wall banging. Durant made a motion, and Pauly grabbed a handful of his hair, jerking his head back.

“No foolish heroics, Dr. Westlake,” Durant said. “Smiley has Skip’s leg pointed directly at your heart.”

Peyton’s eyes, full of fright, shifted to Smiley, who was indeed smiling and indeed did have a leg in his hands. Skip was holding on to his arm for balance, his empty pant leg swinging.

“Now,” Durant said, “we have come only for a single document. Tell us where to find the Bellasarious memorandum and we shall disappear like a nightmare before the breaking day.” He smiled, full of congratulations for himself at having phrased that so beautifully. “Well?” he asked after a bit. “Who has it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Peyton croaked.

Durant made another motion. Rick came in and attacked the lab’s sole filing cabinet, tossing papers over his shoulder, sluicing them across the floor. He looked at Durant and shrugged. He seemed immensely relieved, anxious to get out of there.

“Time’s running out,” Durant murmured. “Pauly, entertain the good doctor.”

Pauly grinned. He lifted Peyton and threw him through a rack of glass shelves that almost touched the ceiling. They broke and rained down in shards on Peyton’s back. Blood appeared in multiple pinpoints on the back of his white lab coat.

Durant walked over to him. “This is very sad, Doc, but one less Jap in this world will not influence the price of eggs in China. Or Japan. You never can be sure, huh? Martinez!”

Martinez hauled Yakky in front of Peyton. The plastic bag over his head was inflating and deflating as he tried to breathe. It was cinched around his neck with a huge rubber band. Martinez held his arms pinned behind his back.