Synthetic: Dark Beginning (14 page)

“Somehow I doubt that,” said Dr. Kimura.  “Just promise me one thing.”

“Why should I?”

The top of Dr. Kimura’s head barely reached Alex’s waist, but there was something of Mrs. Rothschild about her: she could charm one moment and command an army the next.  “I know you’ve been through horrors that I could never imagine, but I just saved you from one of your worst nightmares.  You owe me.”

Alex gripped the railing with both hands.  “Depends on what you want me to promise.”

“Not much.”  Dr. Kimura put a gentle hand on Alex’s shoulder.  “My father always told me, before you unleash revenge upon your enemy, look straight into their eyes and see them for what they are.  It's quite simple, and all I ask.”

Chapter 16

Instead of working, Kora sat on her musty bed like a horny teenager, thinking about Vaughn.  His drawing was out, but she tried not to look at it.  If only she could pinpoint exactly how she felt about the vampire. He’d tried to murder Joshua.  Kora could still see the kid’s face as his legs flailed above the ground. She felt indirectly responsible for this incident and wanted to slot Vaughn as a dangerous beast, but there were too many contradictory images from the previous evening floating in her head. Kora had seen the way he’d held the young girl, Iris, who’d fallen asleep on his shoulder. He refused to be simplified and discarded.  She grabbed the drawing and stuffed it under her mattress when she heard her door open.

“Am I interrupting?”

Kora looked up to see Vaughn peering in through the door.  Damn that broken lock. “Doesn’t anyone around here knock?”

“Would you have let me in?”

“No.”

“Monsters are persistent creatures.”

Her eyes followed him nervously down the stairs. “I’ve noticed.”

“I’m sorry Ruby put you in this miserable guest room.”

“I’ve gotten used to it. How did you know where to find me?”

“This is where she puts her least favorite guests.  The only step below this room is the dungeon.”

Vaughn made a move to sit at the end of her bed. “I’d prefer that you sat on the chair,” she said.

“Are you afraid of me?” He smoothed his hand over the thin blanket and Kora marveled at his long, beautiful fingers. The synthetics she made now were lucky if they got all ten digits let alone such beautiful contours. “You make your bed every morning?”

Kora forced her eyes away from his hands that were still caressing her sheets. “Makes it less depressing. Why are you here?”

“I wanted to apologize for my behavior last night. I was rude.”

“I think you should save your apology for Joshua.”

Vaughn shifted as if he couldn't get comfortable. “Not much cushion to this mattress, is there? Another reason I’m here is to ask if there’s anything you can do to help me.”

“Help you—how?”

He stared at her as if trying to measure how she might react. “I want to eat.”

Kora saw a flash of Berta with back arched and lips parted as Vaughn drank from her wrist. “You mean—”

“Not blood. Real food.”

“Like hotdogs and tacos?”

“Maybe not hotdogs, but Mexican food is high on the list.  I think you owe me that much.  After all, I'm a mistake you need to fix, aren't I?”

Kora’s eyes glazed over as a series of ideas blasted toward her.  She could switch Vaughn’s stomach with that of the synthetic and save herself from the impossible task of creating a blood-based digestive system.

“Seems you’re more than just a mad scientist,” said Vaughn. “This looks just like me, except for the hair. Only a total nerd would have hair like that.”

Kora popped out of her daze to see her drawing in Vaughn’s hands. He held it up beside his head and the similarity was unmistakable. Her first reaction was anger, but when her eyes darted between the drawing and his head, something else caught her eye. “You’re perfect.”

“That’s what all the girls tell me.”

“No, I mean—I always mess something up: toes, fingers, eyelids, nostrils.  With Ruby's synthetic it's the ears, which I still have to fix.  But there’s always a flaw.  Always.  But you don’t seem to have one—at least that I can see.”

“I can assure you that everything you
can’t
see is also perfect.” Vaughn wagged his eyebrows up and down and then pressed a hand to his stomach. “It’s on the inside where everything goes to hell. Do you think any of those little diagrams of bat guts gives you any idea how to fix me?”

Kora shrugged.
“
The fangs would be easy. I could just use a file or an electric—
”

“
Actually—I'll keep the fangs.
” Kora didn't realize she was staring at his mouth until he smiled.
“
And now you see why.
”

Kora struggled not to look at him.  She had to appear more professional because he was laughing at her. “I can definitely fix your stomach, and it will also give me a chance to modify your strength.”

Vaughn pushed his hair out of his eyes and something about the simple motion made her heart race. “That doesn’t sound good,” he said.

“It’s just a tiny chip that ensures you can no longer throttle humans.”

“But I enjoy throttling humans. It’s one of my favorite things, throttling humans.”

“Government regulations in regard to AI, at least it used to be when we had a government.”

Vaughn rose up off her bed and started pacing the floor.
“So there's no legal reason to do it anymore?”

“Okay, then, it’s my regulations. Despite your perfect ears and everything, you are my first and greatest mistake.”

He stopped in front of her and leaned down. “Making a vampire for an insane old woman was definitely wrong, but giving that vampire the ability to beat the hell out of idiot humans wasn’t.”

Kora straightened her back. She wasn't about to let Vaughn push her around. “If you want a normal stomach, then you need to let me modify your strength.”

They glared at each other until Vaughn drew in a deep breath and dropped back onto her bed. “What assurance can you give me that humans aren’t abusing these declawed creatures you sell out of your little mill?”

“Randall promised me that he only sells to clients who treat them with respect.”

“Randall Williams?” A devilish smile lifted one side of Vaughn’s mouth. “I've heard about him.  Used to come here all the time.  He was Ruby’s lover, back in the day, until he proved even too barbaric for her tastes. They had one thing in common: a love of whips, chains, and other nasty instruments of torture. I think she even has some photos around somewhere if you don’t believe me.”

The room instantly closed in on Kora. She found it hard to breathe and gasped for air. Vaughn slipped his arm around her and rubbed her back until she was able to force air into her lungs. When she was finally able to look up into his face, she saw only sympathy. “That's why Alex hates me so much,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “How could I be so stupid?  She even tried to tell me when she said I was a like a child.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Alex. Randall's assistant. He abuses her and it's all my fault.  I worried so much about my creations hurting humans, I never once thought about what humans could do to them.”

“I shouldn't have sprung that on you in such a sassy way.  I'm sorry.”

“No, I'm fine.  In fact, I'm seeing things more clearly than I ever have before.” She pressed her temples as a catastrophic headache pounded through her head.  “I believed Randall about that miserable chip.  I trusted that bastard and even worse, I allowed it to happen when I could have stopped it.”  Kora felt herself veering toward a total meltdown and she didn't want to do it in front of Vaughn. “Let’s go down to the lab and fix your stomach.”  Vaughn started to say something but then paused, and it wasn’t hard to guess what he was thinking.  “You don’t have to worry about the chip. I’ll never do that again. In fact, I need to figure out how to remove it from over two hundred synthetics.”

“You can just send out a mass recall.  And while you're at it, can you fix my brothers?”

Kora groaned. She had more important things to worry about right now than a couple of rotting mutants. “Why bother, I mean, they're both a total mess.”

Vaughn's face darkened.  “Total messes that I deeply care about and would like to keep around.”

She looked at him in amazement. Caring about such poor quality synthetics had never occurred to Kora.  She hated Alex, but the girl was worth repairing, especially if it meant she could have revenge on Randall.  Ivan... not so much.  “Ruby built them, not me.  I wouldn't even know where to begin.”

All of the softness disappeared from Vaughn's voice.  “What do you want in exchange?”

Kora opened her mouth to tell him she didn't want anything, when she realized that wasn't true.  She did want something.  “I want you to visit Joshua.”

Vaughn growled. “Why are you so obsessed with him?  Ivan's a punk but he's ten times the man that Joshua will ever be.”

“It has nothing to do with manliness. Something about Joshua reminds me of someone I cared deeply about.”

“At Mirafield?”
Everything that came out of Kora's mouth seemed to irritate the vampire.
Now he probably thought she had other lovers there besides Randall.

“No, when I lived here at the castle before. I just can't remember who.”

“You just feel sorry for Joshua because he's a precious human who got his ass kicked by me, the monster.”

Kora pointed a finger at him.  “Your brothers are monsters, but not you.  It's important to know where you stand on the ladder of life.”

Vaughn laughed but his face was angry. “It used to be a circle and now with all this science mumbo jumbo it's a ladder? So you see yourself as the sole supplier to the bottom rung, huh?  Working those humans up to the top?”

Kora had never thought of it this way, and she knew her face betrayed her confusion.  “I just think it's important to distinguish between humans, synthetics, and mutants in the natural order.”

“So where will that put Ruby after she's popped into this new vessel you're building?  Is it the brain that counts or the body?”

This discussion was making Kora's headache worse.  In addition to politics, she hated philosophy.  “Look, if you go visit Joshua, I'll do my best to help Ivan and Caleb.  Do we have a deal?”

Vaughn paused to consider.  “Fine, but should I be jealous of Joshua?”

Kora couldn't help the delighted smile that spread across her face.  After all their arguing, he still had a crush on her. He must be sick of girls agreeing with him all the time. “No.  It's not like that.  I just feel sorry for him.”

“Okay then.”  Vaughn leaned down and his eyes glowed feral in the torchlight. “Let's do it.”

For a split second, Kora saw Vaughn on top of her, his face awash with pleasure. She
felt as if her whole body was on fire. “Do what?”

Vaughn laughed and held out his hand. “What are you thinking, you naughty girl? Fix my stomach, remember?”

“Oh, yes of course!” Kora ignored his hand and stormed past him out the door. Her cheeks were burning and she didn't want him to see how embarrassed she was. Had he read her mind? That was impossible, of course, but he had an uncanny way of reading her body language. Maybe all of her thoughts where pasted on her face like stickers. She raced down the hall and into the lab, relieved to see Ishmael had returned from his ocean excursion and was busy testing out one of the surgical lasers on a horridly ugly fish he must have brought back with him.  She felt some of the knots in her stomach untwist.

Vaughn stopped at the door and gaped at Ishmael in horror.  Ishmael stared back at Vaughn with equal surprise, then squiggled across the floor and wrapped him in what Kora recognized as a tender embrace.  “My god, you brought me here as a snack for your sea monster!  I knew you were cruel, but I had no idea.”

Kora watched in amazement. “No, Ishmael’s hugging you. He must recognize you from the old days.”

“I think I’d remember that face,” said Vaughn, struggling to get free of all the arms wound around him.
“
What's he doing now?
”
He watched Ishmael's every move with horror.

“
He's signing that you two are brothers.
Apparently I made him first, and then you.”

“
Brothers—you're kidding, right?
What the hell is a giant squid doing here, anyway?”

“He’s my assistant.”

“I thought you were the solo genius.”

“No, we work together.” Kora lifted a large scalpel Ishmael had just emptied from the sterilizer.

“Maybe we should all settle down before we get started,” said Vaughn, his eyes fixed on the blade.

“Afraid I’ll remove more than your stomach? Come lie down and shut up before I change my mind about helping you.”

Ishmael carried Vaughn over to the gurney and laid him down like a beloved child. Vaughn watched him out of the corner of his eye. “So what does he eat?”

“Fish…and the occasional vampire if he's really hungry.” Kora placed the mask over Vaughn's face.

His eyes closed halfway and then he pried the mask up. “I want to cook you dinner when this is over. Think of it as an incentive to keep the squid from eating me.”

Kora laughed. “How could you possibly know how to cook?”

“Just because a man can’t eat doesn’t mean he can’t cook.”

“I’m sorry, but after this, I'm going to help your brothers, you're going to help Joshua, and then I don't think we should see each other again.”

Vaughn looked crestfallen.  “You're not still going to marry that bastard, are you?”

“I have to.”

“Why?”

“I have too much work to do fixing all of my mistakes.  And I won't be able to do anything without Randall's support.”