Beast Machine (3 page)

The boy cracked a smile
exposing his teeth, perfectly white and straight. Not a stain upon
them. As a small child, he had seen Leroux’s famous
The Phantom of the Opera
performed by a youth theatre group. He couldn’t quite grasp
what the play meant at the time, or even now, but he had always
wanted to see it performed once more to illuminate his mind on the
topic.

“
During his time at the
city college, he met a kind, Jewish man named Julius Rosenberg.
Rosenberg took a specific interest in my father and the two men
became friends, great friends. Their bond over the importance of
academia was immense and their love for wanting all men to be equal
was matched only by their love to breathe. They were soul mates;
they had nearly the same likes and dislikes, but luckily each had a
differing perspective so as to keep things exciting during their
friendly debates.

“
The debates Julius and my
father had together had always been a sight! Julius would hand my
brother and I sweets then unleash the final blow to my father’s
retort, crushing my father in their friendly verbal gymnastics. I
never fully understood what they were saying, most nights, but I
knew Julius and my father truly loved the chance to flash their
brilliance to one another. It was a fun game between two generous
men.” He sighed. “I always think about their debates and how
important it is to not become angry with a friend for merely
disagreeing.” He swilled around the liquid in the wooden
cup.

“
The Rosenbergs would
frequently have dinner with my family, and my brother and I
frequently would do chores for the Rosenbergs out of the colossal
respect my father had for them. Their children, along with the
other neighbor children, would often play with us; hide ‘n seek,
cops and robbers, red rover, kick the can, stick ball – all the fun
games city kids could get into in those days. I can’t remember the
number of times we would have to all scatter because someone broke
something during stick ball.” The old man giggled quietly. “It was
a joyous time until Julius and my father were abruptly shipped off
to war; Julius into the Army and my father into the Navy. Both men
were conscripted in 1940, though the United States of America had
not formally entered into the worldwide fray. My mother cried for
two weeks straight after my father received his draft card. When he
left, my mother cried for two months. That was the last time I ever
saw my father, when he left,” said the old man holding back tears.
“As for Julius, well.”

The man went quiet, as he
kept fighting off his tears. His bulbous knuckles began to shake
uncontrollably and his mouth drooped more than it had
before.

“
Well, what?” asked the
concerned boy. The boy now felt that he had missed out on having
two sets of grandparents – the Rosenbergs and his own.

The man quickly collected
himself after telling himself that his boy needed to hear this
story, with tears or without tears.

“
As for Julius, I only saw
Julius once after the war, in the newspapers,” coughed the man. His
heart sank deep into his hardened soul.

“
While my father and Julius
had been overseas fighting for freedom and humanity, Ethel
Rosenberg, Julius’ actress wife, would have tea with my mother
twice a week; once in the morning on Tuesday and once at night on
Saturday. They started to form a bond like their husbands had; the
bond was formed out of necessity for each woman’s mind and it often
eased their anxieties about the possibilities of what could happen
to their husbands overseas.

“
I often would eavesdrop on
the ladies, even though my brother held the constant worry that we
would receive whoopin’s for me listening into the private
conversations. It was rude to do so in hindsight, but I proceeded
to do so whenever I could. Despite my brother’s worries, I never
was caught snooping into their conversations.”

“
Why have I never met your
brother,” interrupted the son. The boy scratched at his head and
maneuvered himself into a more comfortable position of lying on his
belly than sitting cross-legged. “Is he still alive? Where’s he
live? What was…”

“
In due time, Gaston, in
due time,” assured the father. He sipped the brown liquid from a
wooden cup and coughed loudly. “I may need more of this soon,” he
said to himself as he looked longingly into the barren wooden cup.
It wasn’t the good stuff so he needed more of it to reach a solid
buzz. A solid enough buzz to tell this story, and a solid enough
buzz to do what was best for his son.

The son brought a new
bottle of brown liquor over to his father.

“
Listening to the women
squawk was my favorite pastime when my father was overseas (I
imagined I were a spy for the military!), though their
conversations were typically boring. The pair would giggle about
our neighbor Mrs. Stevoski’s poor fashion choices and would
complain about Ms. Miller, one of my school teachers, being
temperamental when dealing with problem children. Just boring,
deathly boring talk.” He opened up the new bottle. “When the talks
would slide towards a sexual nature I would try to cover my ears
but powered through as I didn’t want to miss a chance to hear any
word about Julius or my father, regardless of how inappropriate the
conversation was for a child. I learned many choice words while
eavesdropping on the two women.” He and his son giggled quietly.
“Most of the dirty words came from Ethel, as she was an actress and
had seen many
unappealing
sights backstage between actors. Or so she would
say.”

The man laughed quietly and
took another sip out of his wooden cup. The booze helped the broken
man suppress the demons he had been fighting the majority of his
life. But he could only suppress them for so long before they would
scrape at his soul once more.

“
One day, Ethel came into
the house with a worried look. I figured she had seen a rat or had
spent too much money on makeup once again. I didn’t pay any mind to
Ethel, as she rarely spoke to the children – it was a sharp
contrast to her warm husband that could strike up a conversation
with a mute.

“
She asked to speak to
mother immediately but mother was sleeping. ‘Please, Jozy, please
wake her up. It’s an emergency,’ she told me. I obliged her, as I
was always taught not to be rude to guests – invited or not. I ran
upstairs and woke my mother from her slumber and I was greeted with
a few swinging fists that nearly grazed my face. ‘Momma, Mrs.
Rosenberg is here and she says it’s an emergency,’ I told my mother
quickly, before she could reload her fists.

“
My mother’s eyes widened
to the size of billiard balls. She frantically said, ‘Jozy, grab
your brother and go to your room, now!’ I did as I was told but
knew that I needed to hear this conversation. It
had
to be something I
needed to hear. I went into spy mode and began to make my movements
deliberate.

“
I grabbed my younger
brother by the neck of his shirt and told him ‘We’re going to play
cops and robbers upstairs! Momma and Ethel are having their tea
today, instead of tomorrow!’ I smiled as I forcefully pulled him
upstairs. Once in our room I explained to him the situation, the
best I could anyway at that age, and how I had to get my ears near
the kitchen. ‘Jozy, we will get whooped if you get caught! I don’t
want my behind whooped!’ he stammered. ‘You will get caught, bubby,
you will get caught!’

“
That phrase still rings in
my mind. More so the tense tone my brother held as he warned me. He
was always a little worrywart.” The man shook his head slowly.
“After easing my brother’s worries – a typical chore of mine – I
crept downstairs and sat next to the kitchen door under a table.
The women were speaking much quieter than usual. I couldn’t fully
understand what they were saying until I lowered my breathing. What
I began to hear would change my family forever.”

The man began to
weep.

Chapter 4

Crossed The Line

“Stop planning your attack
and help me decide what beast I should create next,” chirped Gora
from the prone position next to the Beast Machine. She was pawing
through a large book dubbed
Human History’s
Greatest Heroes, Heroines, Villains and Monsters
by Donald Jarosz. The book was filled with vast
knowledge of human history’s wonderful champions and bloody
conquerors, and every important person in between. The word
Monsters
in the book’s
long title was blood red, while the other words of the title were
merely black.

Hitbear was again staring
intently at the globe and the roughly unfurled maps underneath the
globe. Gora had told him of the places where her enemies regularly
lived, so Hitbear took it upon himself to place tiny markers on
various targets on the globe and maps. There were markers on San
Francisco, Little Rock, Vancouver, Washington and Washington, D.C.
for North America; Shanghai, Beijing, Pyongyang, Mumbai and Kuala
Lumpur were marked for Asia; and Paris, Zurich, Berlin and Kiev
were marked for Europe. Hitbear was deep in thought in how to
correctly reach the targets quickly but efficiently.

“
This is far more important
than creating another advisor beast,” said Hitbear as he faced
Gora. “Get back to me when we’re creating our soldiers.” He turned
back to the globe and gingerly brushed his silly moustache with his
chubby bear fingers. “Now, to anticipate the possible locations
they could flee. This part is going to be tricky. People can move
around much faster than when I was last alive.” He fingered the map
up and down, trying to decide where the new markers should be
placed.

Another round of tiny
markers, differently colored than the first markers, were placed on
the maps as the secondary and tertiary locations that the
scientists may be located. These locations were purely guesses by
Hitbear and he only selected the places that had city names he
liked, so they were useless at best.

San Francisco’s secondary
and tertiary locations were marked as Sacramento and San
Jose.

Little Rock’s secondary and
tertiary locations were marked as Arkadelphia and Bella
Vista.

Vancouver, Washington’s
secondary and tertiary locations were marked as Longview and
Salem.

Washington, D.C.’s
secondary and tertiary locations to flee were marked as Hagerstown
and King George.

Hitbear stopped adding the
secondary and tertiary markers after finishing the North American
cities. He found this to be a tedious task with his cumbersome
figure. “I can get back to this when the first round of targets is
eliminated.”

It was taking him some time
to get used to this new bear body after years as a human, though
Hitbear’s new existence had only been a few days. Were those
muddled memories of being human even his? Or were the memories
implanted by Gora’s Beast Machine? “The memories feel so real,” he
thought.

Hitbear remembered the
general details of what happened during his human existence, but
the intimate details of his former life were muddy. He remembered
most of his childhood and adolescent, but his adult life could only
be remembered in fuzzy, disturbing patches.

“
Fine. I’m going to create
Albert Einstein,” Gora smirked. She had put down
Human History’s Greatest Heroes, Heroines,
Villains and Monsters
and had been reading
a book titled
Geniuses of the
20
^th
Century: Why Einstein’s Brain Should Have Been Put On
Ice
by J.E. Hewitt. “Why not just recreate
Einstein – one of the smartest humans of all-time,” she thought.
“His advice will be priceless!”

Hitbear didn’t budge to the
playful threat. Maybe Hitbear was not as anti-Semitic as the
real
Hitler was? Gora was
determined to find out. “Hmm. Now to decide what to mix Einstein
with… A hog? No, no that won’t do. It wouldn’t be kosher.” Gora
walked to the cooling station, unlocked it and removed the six
vials from within the small unit. The vials were then placed softly
on the table in no particular order.

She kept walking around the
table with the six remaining vials holding tiny animals in stasis.
“What about a snake? Einsnake? No, no – that sounds terrible; plus
the snake is reserved for someone else.” She spoke loud enough to
try to pique Hitbear’s interest, or ire in this case, toward the
incoming beast.

Gora began to look sternly
at the vials as Hitbear was sternly looking at the maps after his
brief respite.

“
Got it!” Gora shouted.
“Einstein, a man with incredible intelligence, hair and
understanding, will be meshed with the symbol of wisdom – the owl!
Albert Owlstein!” Gora let out the sounds of an owl:
hoot, hoot, hoot
. She
flapped her arms idiotically.

Hoot. Hoot.
Hoot
. She kept flapping her
arms.

“
Cliché,” mentioned
Hitbear, “and an idiotic pun.” He snorted loudly and spit on the
ground.

“
Oh, shut up,” glared Gora
as she stopped flapping her arms. She crossed them instead. “Just
don’t eat him you furry monster.”

She grabbed the vial with a
small barn owl inside and a new vial of the purple, glistening
liquid that removes the animal from stasis. She opened the beast
machine, poured the liquid on the small barn owl, and turned the
oven dial to ‘1 Day.’