Beast Machine (31 page)

“
Ah, yes, my love, you are
correct. That memory had momentarily slipped my mind.”

“
Don’t fret, Chelsey, my
love. Just sit back and watch me work.”

Chelsey smiled and backed
away from Silva as he adjusted Doctor Bertrand Bertram’s body to
better suit the operation. She found a nearby chair and sat in the
chair, though she more or less was projected on the
chair.

She began to hum a calming
tune as Silva made the first incision in Doctor Bertrand Bertram’s
neck.
Glurk
went
Doctor Bertrand Bertram’s stomach; he was possibly still hungry,
had irritable bowel syndrome or had bad acid reflux, among several
other things wrong with his body.

Silva would spare the fat
doctor the pain he inflicted on unruly patients, like Charles
Mandrake, so the operation could be completed quickly as he needed
to operate on as many doctors as possible in the next few
weeks.

“
One of these days, my
love,” said Silva as he quickly operated on Doctor Bertrand
Bertram, “I will upload you into a body of your very
own.”

Chapter 29

Don’t Rant and
Drive

Gora was driving north
toward the location she and her beasts had decided upon days
before. Her three beasts
should
be completed with their task and should have
hidden the cement truck appropriately in the nearby brush. Gora
took in a deep breath and adjusted the radio dial of her rental
car. Nothing but annoying static buzzing fell from the rental’s
speakers.
Bzzt
.

“
We could have taken my
Mercedes, you know,” said a deep, raspy voice. “It would have been
the least I could do for what you’re doing for me. You may be
saving my career if what you say about this carbon-dioxide vent is
true.”

Doctor Bridget Borehole was
riding shotgun in Gora’s beat-up rental car. Gora held gigantic
restraint by not just killing Doctor Borehole right then and
there.

“
I could slam the car right
into this wall divider and kill her,” thought Gora.

Gora peered to her left.
Then she peered to her right.

“
I could drive off one of
these upcoming cliffs and jump out before she had a chance to do
the same,” thought Gora. “It surely would work! It has
to!”

Gora placed her left hand
on her left front pocket. She could feel her knife.

“
Fuck it,” thought Gora,
“I’ll just pull over and stab this bitch to death.”

Her thoughts were
excessively violent and highly irrational, but the thoughts left
when her rental car’s busted radio interrupted her thought
process.

Bzzt, bzzt,
bzzzzzzzzzzt.

Gora shook her head as if
she had just woken up from a stupor. She refocused on the mission
and looked ahead on the road. Doctor Borehole sat quietly and
breathed slowly; her chest rising and falling dramatically with
each breath.

A billboard to Gora’s left
read, “Abortion is terrorism! Life begins at conception!” The
billboard had a picture of a young crying child in the foreground
of a smoldering building. Gora cringed. The following billboard
advocated for the building of a new sports stadium in the nearby
city at the expense of the local taxpayers. “Pass Levy SB-23! Don’t
let our Fireballs leave town!” read the billboard. It was adorned
with a picture of the team’s mascot, Petey the Fireball, giving
thumbs up to the passing cars.

“
Those are terrible ideas,”
thought Gora. “Killing Doctor Borehole that way would definitely
lead right back to me and my beasts.” So her restraint held for the
next few hours as she drove north and held idle conversation with
the doctor.

“
Thank you,” replied Gora
several minutes after Doctor Borehole had spoke, “but I have this
rental and better get my money’s worth!” Gora tried to giggle but
coughed instead, resulting in a hyena-like call. It wasn’t
pretty.

“
Charming like usual,”
Doctor Borehole replied. Doctor Borehole kept her eyes straight and
her breathing consistently deep and slow.
Bzzt.

Maybe Doctor Borehole knew
Gora was here to kill her, or she had been hit by a wall of relief
that Gora really did discover a colossal carbon-dioxide vent
disproving manmade pollution caused climate change. She seemed as
if she were relieved to get out of the office and not have to deal
with the politics of her controversial stance for a day.

“
I try,” stuttered Gora.
She messed with the radio dials some more but the static merely got
worse.
BZZT.
“You
mentioned I’d be saving your career? How bad are things?” Gora
looked over at Doctor Borehole, but Doctor Borehole kept her eyes
straight ahead.

“
To be honest with you,”
sighed Doctor Borehole, “it’s been a miserable fourteen months.”
She rubbed her eyes with both hands then returned to her
straightforward gaze. “A lot of donors and fellow doctors have
dropped out from supporting my facility as more and more Americans
– humans, really – agree that it is scientific fact that climate
change is happening and humans are causing it.”

“
Well I guess I am saving
your career then, Bridget.” Gora looked over at her passenger with
a friendly smile.

“
Yes, yes you are, Gora.
Yes you are.” Doctor Borehole did not return the smile.

Bzzt, bzzzzzt
said the radio speakers – still releasing only
static. The silence mixed with the occasional
bzzt
made the drive and the
conversation not seem real to Gora.

Gora had always seen Doctor
Borehole as a saboteur of proven science, as a boisterous denier of
manmade climate change, and as a person that had an endless supply
of energy to be used for obtaining gossip.

But Doctor Borehole was
silent and calm during the drive.

Bzzt.

Gora wanted to pry, a bit,
since Doctor Borehole would be leaving her physical life in a few
short hours. Maybe more depending on how quickly she suffocates
under the cement.

“
So, uh,” asked Gora, “any
new gossip or rumors you wanted to share?”
Bzzzzzt
. “I’ve been out of the loop
for quite some time now.”
Bzzzzzt
. Gora apprehensively laughed,
trying to seem
charming
as Doctor Borehole had only minutes ago described Gora. Gora
didn’t catch the sarcasm
dripping
over the original charming comment.

Doctor Borehole sighed and
looked out her passenger side window.
Bzzt.
She touched the window
dramatically with her right hand and turned around to face
Gora.

Gora turned to look at
Doctor Borehole before returning her gaze to the road. Gora saw
tears rolling down Doctor Borehole’s face. Voluminous tears.
Bzzt.

“
Oh, dear,” said Gora
worriedly. “Do you need me to pull over?” She kept looking at
Doctor Borehole whenever she hit a stretch of carless
highway.

Doctor Borehole kept crying
but motioned Gora to not stop.

“
Don’t start feeling sorry
for this woman,” thought Gora. “She’s conned,” –
bzzt
– “hurt, and
ridiculed you too many times in your past to feel sorry for her.
She’s the devil incarnate.”

Through tears, Doctor
Borehole said, “My career is essentially over unless this proves to
be true. I have been shamed for being anti-science, which is
entirely true because I don’t believe any of this shit I’ve pushed
onto the public. I push bullshit! No one is going to want to work
with me within a year.”
Bzzt.

Gora listened closely to
her passenger. The road was becoming treacherous so she needed her
eyes on the road but wanted to focus on what Doctor Borehole said.
Gora began to feel pity for Doctor Borehole despite what had
happened between them.

“
I only initially did it
for the money, and, believe me, the money was good and it still has
been good.” Doctor Borehole laughed stiffly. She wiped her tears.
“I’ve received large sums of money from petroleum moguls in Canada,
from coal mines throughout the poorest American States, and from
oil warlords in all parts of the world! Just to convince people
that we’ve never been harming the environment so they could make
more money.” She shook her head softly. “Not to mention the new
barons of non-renewable resources: the natural gas fracking groups.
All these companies couldn’t care less how much of the Earth they
destroy. How many lives they ruin!

“
My endorsement meant their
company could dump anything they wanted without much reprisal from
the government, force wastewater into the Earth to find natural
gas, and by not having to clean up oil spills in oceans! Aside from
paltry fines here or there to ease the environmental yuppies, these
companies got off scot free because of me.

“
These politicians wanted
Americans, if not all the uneducated humans of the world, to
believe that manmade climate change was a bunch of hooey; which of
course it’s not hooey, it’s legitimate. Sadly, millions of –
bzzt
– Americans have been
brainwashed by their supposed leaders and I am to blame as
well.”

“
Oh, no, you’re –“, began
Gora. She was quickly cut off.

“
Yes, I am, Gora. I
absolutely am at fault as much as those corporations. That money I
took, that filthy money, bought me that wonderful facility, a
lavish home and a stupendous staff – though they are as delusional
as the legitimate climate change deniers.”
Bzzzzzt
. Doctor Borehole had stopped
crying and began to look straightforward emotionlessly like at the
beginning of the drive. “I want to make things right, so I actually
hope what you’re going to show me is false because I’m not sure how
much longer I can continue this charade.”

“
Well,” breathed Gora
slowly, “I hope things work out.”

“
Why am I feeling so sorry
for her?” pondered Gora. “This woman caused a lot of emotional and
mental anguish! She is one of the main reasons I can’t show my face
at ASH meetings ever again! Her rumors about my non-existent sexual
dalliances made me the lady scientist whore of the decade. She’s
holding back science and my life! Why do I pity her?”

Bzzt! Bzzzzt!
Bzzzzzzzt!

The radio’s static was
ramping up and pilfering any silence left in the rental car. Gora
felt a frontal headache coming along.

“
I should never have taken
that initial job offer from that man with the syringe tattoo on his
neck,” said Doctor Borehole over the
bzzt
-ing radio speakers. “That’s what
got me into this mess…” She took a deep breath. “It was over two
decades ago and I was a poor doctorate student drinking watered
down tea in some hole-in-the-wall café.”
Bzzt.
Her gaze left the
straightforward view that she held most of the drive and fell upon
the middle of the dashboard. Doctor Borehole quickly, yet
powerfully, smashed her fist on the dashboard (
SLAM!)
, causing Gora to shriek and
swerve the rental car into the next lane. The swift strike from
Doctor Borehole ended the incessant
bzzt
-ing for good.

Gora let out a loud,
“
Jesus Christ!
” as
she returned the car to the appropriate lane. Doctor Borehole
returned to looking straightforward. Gora’s frontal headache
dissipated.

“
As I was saying, I was a
poor doctorate student drinking watered down tea in some
hole-in-the-wall café in a scummy part of Columbus, Ohio. An older
gentleman approached my table and sat down, which was not unusual
for a woman of my caliber to be joined by a random man seeking my
attention.” Gora shook her head in annoyance. “I instantly noticed
he had one stunningly bleak eye and another eye was full of
marvelous awe; his eyes were heterochromatic, meaning each eye held
a different color, dear.” Gora shook her head in annoyance and bit
down on her lip to suppress the urge to belittle Doctor Borehole’s
vain personality.

“
He introduced himself
simply by the name of Malthus and made sweet, generous comments
about my beauty – all of which were true, I might add. He was
intriguing to the young, beautiful me!” A smile crossed Doctor
Borehole’s face. “My eyes had to have been glowing, ‘A man with
only one name? He must be special like Cher! Not to mention how his
strong and gentle eyes tell the story of his life!’ He must have
known right there he had me exactly where he wanted me, as he was
smiling the entire conversation, causing me to smile the entire
time. It was enchanting.”

Doctor Borehole adjusted
her hair, pushing it behind both ears. “I remember I asked him,
‘So, what exactly do you want from me, Malthus? I’m not one to open
up my legs easily.’ Though, I totally wanted him inside of me right
then and there. Sadly, he was not in the café to score a lay with
an attractive woman like myself.”

Gora wondered where she was
going with this diatribe of self-indulgence.