Copper Visions (11 page)

The great beast turned to look at her. "I apologize for the intrusion, ma'am. I did not realize joining you would cause so much alarm."

Eyes wide, Sophie stopped screaming.

"Thank you for your assistance in my escape," he said, bowing his head.

"Thank you for the diversion we needed. Were you also the one who created the lightning that set Sophie's bed on fire?"

"I wish I could take credit for that but, alas, I cannot. From what I've heard, it's the inevitable consequence of putting too much of my blood in a metallic container that is also near a body or device capable of channeling electricity, the container being whatever is grafted to your lady friends back and the body being, well, your lady friend. Do I have the honor of addressing David Alexander?"

"You have," David said with a smile.

Sophie gaped to see it, stunned with how human he looked interacting with the monster that was sitting their speaking to them in their own language, with an accent that would not be out of place in the sitting rooms at the palace.

“It talks,” she gasped.

“I am a 'he', madam, not an 'it', though I don't expect you to know that. We are quite well acquainted, if you can remember me.”

“We certainly are not. I think I'd remember meeting someone who looked like you,” Sophie said, pulling her indignation around herself like a cloak.

“I don't believe you ever saw me, though some of the others did. No, your mind was the strongest and so I chose to communicate with you while you were in the trance and you allowed me to speak through you once we got to know each other better. I remember I was quite concerned for you after you left the hospital. Have you been well since we last spoke?”

“Uh,” she started. “Well enough, I suppose, but I don't remember speaking to you at all.”

He shook his head sadly. “I was afraid that would happen. In that case, Miss Sophie, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I only wish it could be under better circumstances.”

“Likewise, Mister, um, what's your name?” Soothed by his peaceful behavior, even if it did hide the vicious nature she was almost certain he had, Sophie was becoming curious.

“Oh, how rude of me. Of course you wouldn't remember and I have not introduced myself to Mr. Alexander, either. Alas, my name in my native language is difficult to pronounce by humans. Professor Alexander called me Brian and that name is sufficient for me.”

“Well, Brian, it is a pleasure to meet you. I'm sorry I can't remember our other conversations that we had in my head.”

“Yes, I had such hopes after we talked.”

“You mentioned there were others you talked to,” David interrupted.

"Yes, there were several before Miss Sophie who I tried to connect with while they were in their trance. Some were little more than mumbling idiots, repeating phrases I couldn't understand until they faded away. Others were more open but filled with nothing but the rushing wind. I had the feeling I could have done anything I'd liked if I could have figured out how to connect with the void around me. Before Miss Sophie, my best connection was with a Miss Lisa but her mind was like that of a particularly vicious child and I could not hold our connection long enough to do more than determine who she was."

"Lisa?" Sophie started, remembering the girl moving slowly down the hall at the hospital while they made their escape.

"Yes," Brian said, turning to her. "She was in some kind of accident, from what I recall. There were bits of her life that would come forward at times and they made her angry. When she realized that I was not a part of her and that I was, in fact, trying to talk to her in a way she wasn't familiar with, she chased me out."

"Did she remember me, at all?" Sophie asked.

"Not that I recall. Why? Should she?"

"My best friend was Lisa and she worked with me at the mine. We lived together with all the girls in our section and she was next to me when the ceiling collapsed. They told me I was the only one who survived and only because the doctors saved me."

"Well, they certainly brought others back from the mine and attempted to use my blood to make them do something. I wonder if they weren't too far gone to be saved."

"I suspect they were close enough to life to try," David said. "The introduction of the alien blood to human tissue without the use of some kind of vessel to contain it creates a volatile reaction that can occasionally mimic the muscle movement of a healthy limb."

"Yes, your father noted that in his experiments in his lab. There was some question as to whether, with a limb that was sufficiently damaged but still capable of recovery, if the introduction of my blood could speed that recovery."

"He never published that," David said. "He never published anything that indicated he had found you or your people in the jungle."

"So how would Doctor Blue know to try?" Sophie asked. "If he tried to save my friends just by putting the stuff in them, why would he have thought that would work?"

David and Brian looked at each other and Brian cleared his throat.

"He had to have read Professor Alexander's private research journals," he said. "The ones that were in the lab after it exploded."

"I thought I had all of those," David said. "I was sent his personal effects by the people who cleaned up after the accident. His servants intimated that there was little left in his lab worth saving."

"Well, they would, wouldn't they?" Brian said. “His servants were all locals. They may have worshiped your father like a demi-god but they never agreed with his bringing their gods from the jungle so they could see they were flesh and blood. The flesh was a bit different and the blood was green but they discovered we weren't much better than they were and it broke something in them.”

“You act as though he killed their gods by introducing them,” David said.

“Well, he did, if that's what he did,” Sophie said.

They turned to look at her and she felt suddenly embarrassed.

“What do you mean?” Brian asked.

“People like their gods to be better than them. When you make them human, they become less better than them. It's,” Sophie shook her head in frustration. “I don't know how to say it but I can understand them being mad at the person who brought their gods out of the deep jungle and into their parlor for tea.”

“We weren't that kind of god,” Brian said. “There was no moral guidance from their belief about us, we were merely the keepers of their dead and the punishers of the wicked and unwary.”

“And they needed to know that their loved ones were taken care of, that the wicked would be punished.”

David nodded. “Yes, I can see how that could have been a problem. Were there problems with the local populace, Brian? I understood from Professor Alexander that they were peaceful and inclined to help him in his work.”

“They were afraid of him, and me, that much was clear. I was sent to replace some of the other assistants because they terrified the servants.”

“Was that his decision or yours?” Sophie asked? “Because it doesn't sound like the kind of decision Professor Alexander would be likely to make if he didn't notice the problems with the locals.”

“Professor Alexander didn't notice a lot of things until they interfered with his work. I wasn't even certain he noticed when Adam and Julian left.”

“He noticed more than he let on, I think,” Brian said. “But it was my superiors decision to send me after some of the local villagers attacked my predecessor to see if he was mortal. He didn't die but the fire was devastating.”

“Why didn't they just stop helping him?” Sophie asked.

“His research was fascinating,” Brian said. “We made some real breakthroughs that are likely to help both my people and yours.”

“What could he have possibly found that would help a god?” Sophie asked, obviously skeptical.

“More than I think anybody could possibly realize who wasn't deeply connected to our people. For all of his faults, Professor Alexander was genuinely trying to help people with his research.”

“Given the nature of some of his experiments, I think that might be debated,” David said. “Especially with how he went about obtaining some of this subjects.”

“He'd stopped doing that by the time I came to be his assistant,” Brian said, his back stiffening. “By the time I arrived, he was working on missing limbs.”

“What had he been working on before that?” Sophie asked, curious.

“Something that doesn't bear talking about,” David said. “It's done, Professor Alexander is dead and there is nobody able to carry on the aborted line of research.”

“Was is really that bad?” Brian asked. “It did end with you being created.”

“No,” David said. “It only began with me.”

Sophie's eyes were big as saucers, hardly daring to breathe lest she interrupt what they were saying and not get to hear more.

“There were years of experiments before he went so far the locals reacted. It wasn't the experiments either, really, though I know they were unnerved when he actually made progress with his stated purpose. No, it was the fact that he started using the locals rather than his own family that bothered them.” David's face was immobile, as though he'd forgotten Sophie was there and he should pretend to be human.

“I hadn't heard that,” Brian said. “I'm sorry for bringing up painful memories.”

“He wouldn't have talked about it by the time you joined him. The three of us had left to see what we could make of the world and our places in it. His experiments were successful enough to be self-determining and he went on to focus on the minutia of how we worked mechanically. Though, from what I heard about the final experiment, the one that destroyed him and the lab, he never gave up on refining his ideas about what we were and what we should be. My father could be stubborn that way.”

Sophie gasped and David turned his eyes to her, his head following slowly behind. They stared at her dully, the shadows blocking everything but a reflection of the sun coming through the split in the dark curtains, then his face started moving again. With a small smile, David turned to Brian. “And there are no painful memories, Brian, because I don't feel pain as most people would describe it.”

“Yes,” Brian said slowly. “That's what I was given to understand. Perhaps it would be best if we left this topic behind us, at least for the moment.”

“That would be the sensible thing to do,” David agreed. “I should also talk to George about our destination. We've been moving rather quickly away from the hospital.”

Pulling a tarnished brass speaking horn from the wall, David angled it so he could speak more directly into it. Most private carriages had tubes that could be disengaged for more privacy but public cabs like the one George operated had ones that were more solid and gave the driver an ear on the conversation that had to be taken into account when talking in a cab, something most people who hired them tended to forget.

“George, are we going somewhere in particular?” David asked into the horn.

“The airdocks, sir. Safest place to get away from unwanted pursuit, if I may say so.”

“I see. Were we being pursued, George?” David asked.

“There was a carriage that started behind us shortly after we left the hospital, sir. Can't see a sign of who it belongs to and it may just be that they're going in the same direction we are but I wanted to be safe if they weren't someone you wanted following you.”