Edgar Aeternum, Book 1: Tales of Aeternal Love (33 page)

Maddi remembered that Jarvis had ranted about
sending something to Edgar to prove the seriousness of her intent.
He leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes and tried
to clear his mind of what he'd just seen. Unfortunately, the image
that replaced it was of a horrified Edgar opening the box
containing Ridgely's mangled penis and thinking it was his.

He opened his eyes and looked around the room
again; there had to be something he could use against Jarvis. He
forced himself to look at Ridgely again, hoping against hope that
Jarvis had left behind a scalpel or a knife. Maddi couldn't see
anything metallic in front of the man's body, though it could've
been covered in all the blood on the floor; it may even be behind
the corpse. His stomach turned at the thought of trying to get over
to the corner to look for a weapon and then get back to the
bed.

Further complicating that plan, he wouldn't
be able to hide the trail of Ridgely's blood he'd no doubt leave on
his way back. Then he realized that the sheets were stiff with
dried blood; maybe she'd overlooked something on the bed. He leaned
forward to check, fighting the waves of pain and nausea that
accompanied the action.

His vision started to blur as he felt around
the sheets, pain and nausea overtaking him. He was about to give up
when he bumped something hard and smooth. Elation won out over pain
as he sat back and examined his prize. Jarvis hadn't retrieved
everything, after all; he had an empty Prozine injector. It wasn't
much, but it was something. The needle was a little under an inch
long, nothing compared to a scalpel or the mini. He knew this type
of injector was a one-shot – one use and recycle; however, there
were ways of tampering with it to get a second use.

Maddi began working on the small device,
attempting to get the back off so he could access the med tube. He
had nothing to put in it, of course, but nothing was exactly what
he needed. Once the seal on the tube was broken and the tube
removed, the injector would shoot a harmless stream of air if
activated while empty; harmless unless injected into an artery, in
which case the stream could create a large enough air embolus to
cause Jarvis' heart to fail. He'd have to hold the injector in
place for almost thirty seconds to make it work.

Maddi dropped the injector and stared at it
as disgust and horror spread through his consciousness. He was
creating a lethal weapon and, worse yet, was planning to use it on
a human being at the first possible opportunity. That thought send
his mind spinning.

What the hell am I doing? I'm working to
become a healer, but I'm planning a cold-blooded murder! No. I
can't do this. It doesn't matter that she's fucking crazy, all life
is sacred! That's the first thing they teach us. Shit, my parents
have told me that all my life. I didn't have my first taste of meat
until after I moved away from home!

How the fuck can I be doing this? It goes
against everything I have ever believed in; no matter what, no
matter how bad the act, no living being should be put to death.
Even if it means I never make it out of here in one piece, or
alive, Jarvis is a human being, a sacred life. I can't do it. Even
if I lose my chance of a happy life, a career, Edgar…

That last thought stopped his racing mind.
Edgar could do this horrible thing he was contemplating; from
everything he'd said, Edgar had done it or at least paid to have it
done. That was why Maddi left. And yet, the thought of never seeing
Edgar again, of losing all the joys and wonders life had to
offer…

Maddi grabbed the injector and almost threw
it across the room. Arm pulled back, he stopped as another
realization slammed its way into his mind. He saw Edgar's face, the
pain in his eyes as he shared those secrets. Edgar wasn't a
cold-hearted man; he did what had to be done in the face of an
impossible situation. He'd done exactly what Maddi's boss at the
clinic did when veterinary science couldn't save a badly injured
pet. This from the woman who, other than his parents, was the
strongest advocate for life Maddi knew. His hand fell to his lap,
still gripping the injector.

No. I can't accept that, I can't! It's a
convenient excuse to end a life. Jarvis isn't injured, she's crazy.
Dangerous, deadly and sick, but not injured. As a healer, I have a
duty to help her, not kill her!

He sat wrestling with the issue, back and
forth, not finding a justification for killing Jarvis that didn't
show as pure bullshit under scrutiny. He began wondering if anyone
was looking for him; surely, his friends had called Altair Security
when he went missing. Unless they assumed he was with Edgar. Would
Edgar be looking or had he ruined everything when he left Highland
House? He felt hot tears welling up and shook his head.

This is stupid! I've only just started
getting to know him! How can he be so damned important to me
already? Yeah, he's everything I've ever wanted in a man, minus the
disregard for life bit; but that's huge for me! I can't be with
someone who treats people – even psychos like Jarvis – like they're
mad dogs, fit to be put down. It's just not…

Maddi forgot all about the impending tears as
another memory came to him. He looked at the injector, turning it
over and over, as he remembered a scene from his childhood. It was
a spring day, beautiful weather, and he was in a park with his
parents. They were playing what passed for catch with a five
year-old; spending more time running to retrieve the ball than
actually catching it.

In the background, they heard screaming;
neither he nor his parents paid all that much attention to it
initially. It was a park with a playground; some kid was always
falling down or freaking out over something. He remembered seeing
his Dad's face then, as an adult's screams joined the child's. His
Mom looked in the direction of the screams and ran to grab him. As
she did so, he saw a small child on the ground rolling around with
a dog. It looked to him as though the two were playing, but the few
adults around them were all yelling and trying to get them apart. A
man in a uniform was running toward the child, waving something in
his hand. The adults backed away and that was when Maddi saw the
blood; the dog wasn't playing with the child, it was biting
her.

The man in the uniform – a Security Officer,
his parents explained later – finally arrived and got to one knee.
He pointed his hand at the dog and, just like magic to his 5 year
old mind, the dog lay down. The man and the little girl's mother
moved to help her. The mother was crying as she held her little
girl and the Officer was looking at the bites. That was when
Maddi's parents turned and left the park, taking him home. Later,
they explained to him that the little girl and the dog weren't
playing; some animals got sick, but not like a cold or the
sniffles. There were sicknesses of the mind that made nice dogs act
bad and do bad things. It wasn't magic that made the dog lay down,
they said; the Officer had shot and killed the dog.

He'd cried then, because the dog was dead and
his parents explained to him that sometimes these sick animals
couldn't get better. Life was special - they hadn't used sacred
until much later – but sometimes death was the only cure. He
remembered disagreeing with them and crying himself to sleep that
night. The memory faded then and Maddi was back in the room, back
with Ridgely's corpse, back with the blood-soaked sheets and the
dull throb in his knees. Back with the mad dog in the other
room.

He wiped away his unshed tears and set about
the task of modifying the injector. He was going to be a healer
someday, yes, but part of that meant that death was sometimes the
only cure. It was most definitely the cure for mad dogs and certain
psychopaths.

In the back of his mind, the sacred life
argument began again. This time, it was buttressed by thoughts of
Ghandi, who suffered great torments without resorting to violence.
Mother Teresa was in the mix, living in some of the worst places on
Earth just to help those less fortunate. Quotes from Sh'ara Q'Nal,
the Thraxian healer, ran through his mind, along with images of
Juan-Carlos de Los Santos Rodriguez, who gave his own life so that
forty-seven other shuttle passengers might live. He stopped working
as the last piece fell into place.

These people – Ghandi, Teresa, Q'Nal and de
Los Santos Rodriguez – they were extraordinary. They suffered a
lot, and they did it with grace and dignity and no care for
themselves. Damn right, they're to be honored, even emulated. But
that's just it – they were extraordinary. Yeah, I like myself just
fine, but I'm not like them. Maybe they really were touched by some
universal energy that made them the way they were; but I haven't
been.

As much as I believe in life, I can't help
but admit that sometimes death is the answer. No, Jarvis isn't a
mad dog; she's a psychopathic killer. The only difference between
the two, when you get right down to it, is that the dog can't talk.
If conventional veterinary medicine couldn't save an animal, as a
vet, I'd have no problem putting the animal down. It'd be the only
humane thing to do; so, maybe that's true for Jarvis, too?

Maybe I'm selfish, but damn it, I don't want
to fuckin' die! Not here, at least; stuck in a stench-filled
bedroom, shot up by some psycho bitch. Even if I was special like
those people, what good would my death do? Ghandi worked for peace
his whole life and some sicko shot him three times in the chest. He
did great things, sure, but maybe he'd have done even more if he'd
had a gun and beat the guy to the punch.

Mother Teresa's no different. Yeah, she
helped a shitload of people and she worked right up until she died.
She welcomed suffering as a way to participate in a faith I can't
even pretend to understand. She left her family behind and never
looked back; yet, there was still a ton of unhappiness in the
world. The same with Q'Nal. She sacrificed everything – family,
home, citizenship – all by becoming a healer in secret and leaving
Thraxus to help those in need. Many people are alive today,
especially on the outer colony worlds, mainly due to her. That's
great for them; but what about her? Her own world hated her and
finally got the last word by sending an assassin to Doranna Prime.
He blew her damn head off right in the middle of her own
clinic.

De Los Santos Rodríguez was the same.
The moment
that shuttle engine locked into an overload cycle, it was all over
for everybody. The emergency separation system froze, the life pods
went offline, and they were finished. Until he ran back to the
engine compartment, sealed himself inside and manually ejected the
drive. He was atomized when that baby blew but the other people on
that shuttle made it. For what, though? So they could turn on each
other before rescue vessels could reach them? So the weak and
helpless could be killed and eaten? Better the whole damn ship had
blown, if you ask me.

C'mon, Maddi, you can't be this cynical!
What about that whole starfish story they taught in school? 'Might
not matter to the ones who died, but it mattered to the one she
threw back!' Shit! The way these things work out, it was probably
eaten by some fucking sea creature.

No. I can't think like that; if there's not
any good in the world, then what's the whole point of living? A
nation eventually became free because of Ghandi and no one knows
how many people were fed by Mother Teresa's efforts. The entire
population of Doranna Prime owes their lives to Sh'ara Q'Nal;
without her, the Danje Plague would've spread over the whole
planet. And despite the horrors those forty-seven people committed
while waiting for rescue, two of the surviving engineers went on to
develop the tech that now prevents such overload cycles because de
Los Santos Rodriguez sacrificed himself.

Why become a vet? Why work so fucking hard
for it? That's easy; because I believe in the work. My greatest
contribution to the world might be setting broken bones and helping
distressed cats give birth, but it's my contribution to make. We
can't all be Ghandi and that's fine. Besides, I can't help but
think that even Q'Nal would smack the shit out of Jarvis.

I don't have to be happy about it, I don't
have to choose this alternative for every situation, but one
thing's for damn sure: The only way I'm getting out of here alive
is if that crazy bitch gets put down. If it's good enough for a mad
dog, it's damn good enough for her ass.

Maddi set about working on the injector
again, a grim look of determination on his face, the tip of his
tongue protruding from one corner of his mouth in
concentration.

Nine
A.M

Dressed and caffeinated, Edgar paced his
apartment waiting for Evans' agent to arrive. The DNA test of the
severed penis would take about four hours, even with the 2-4's
advanced technology. Edgar put a piece of bed sheet that had been
liberally soaked with Maddi's semen in the box Campbell sent. The
whole thing would be given to the agent.

The HC interrupted his pacing by announcing a
visitor. After confirming that it was the agent, Edgar grabbed the
box and waited by the door. Moments later, the HC announced the
visitor and Edgar palmed the door open. He was greeted not by the
stereotypical burly bouncer-type often employed in such ventures,
but by a petite woman who stood all of five-three. She was dressed
casually in jeans and a faded t-shirt, her long, dark red hair
pulled into a pony-tail.

"Mr. Aeternum?" she asked. When Edgar nodded
and motioned her inside, she continued, "I'm Laureth. Barrister
Evans sent me."

"I'd say 'pleased to meet you,' but under the
circumstances..." he let the attempt at humor trail off.

"No worries, sir," Laureth responded. "May
I?" she gestured at the box.