New Kid in Town - part 2
You came to take us
All things go
All things go
To recreate us
All things go
All things go
The doctor looked down on the glowing mass of tissue, his mouth open in an astonished expression. He held a glowing LED lantern up, its harsh light illuminating the grubby mental-patient-turned-homeless-woman. “What...” he began, tearing his gaze away from it, then he realized who he was talking to. What, and sometimes 'where', rarely worked with her. Still an attempt needed to be made .
“Cindy?”
“I'm Cindy.”
“I'm Cindy.”
“Yes. You are. Where did you find... this?”
Cindy blinked owlishly at the small red wagon containing several pounds of pulsating tissue and bone. She'd been pulling it dutifully around behind her for a couple of days now, and she didn't remember exactly where she'd picked it up. Hadn't their been more of it once? Or was that less? She wasn't sure, she just liked the golden color of it. Hamburger had never glowed like this at home. She'd put other bits and bobs in there with the glowing mess, but they hadn't glowed at all. Not even the bird. She'd thought the bird might glow. Realizing she'd been asked a question, she snapped back to the here-and-now.
“It was dark,” she said finally. A glowing chunk of whatever-it-was turned over in the wagon bed with a moist sucking sound. The air smelled of copper and spoiled meat.
“What else?” questioned the doctor.
“There was more.” Cindy was remembering now. Images spun and danced behind her small black eyes in chaotic reels of mental celluloid, edited by a madman.
“How much more?”
“A lot. But it wasn't like this.” She pointed at the luminescent meat. “It wasn't all,” she opened and closed both hands slowly, “all oooooooo like this. It had stopped. It was dark.”
The doctor thought about this a moment. “Dark. You are saying that there was more material, but that it wasn't glowing like this was?”
The doctor thought about this a moment. “Dark. You are saying that there was more material, but that it wasn't glowing like this was?”
Cindy nodded. “Sure.”
“Remarkable.”
Cindy nodded again. “Remarkable,” she parroted. “Do you want it? I figured you would want it, and you would give me my medcin'. Dee Santy Claus did it. So he could join them. Dee Santy Claus said it all belonged to him anyway, even if it did sound like a dream.” She thought about this, then added “''cept when it was screaming and all gooshy. It didn't sound like a dream then. But it stopped screaming and then Dee Santy Claus was the same as it was, and he went above.”
The doctor was crouching over the wagon now, poking at chunks of muscle and bits of bone with a pencil. Was that brain matter? “Do you want it?” She hoped he did. The wagon was a pain to maneuver through the tunnels of Below. And she was pretty sure a dog had taken off with a large chunk of it yesterday. And it was starting to smell.
“Yes. Go see Jorge. Tell him the doctor said that you were to be given your medicine.”
“Yes. Go see Jorge. Tell him the doctor said that you were to be given your medicine.”
“Ok.” She ambled happily off down the tunnel, making little “oooo oooo” noises, her hands opening and closing in time with the sound, leaving him with whatever, or whoever, this had been. She liked Jorge, even if he was nearly ten feet tall and appeared to be made of rock. The doctor had helped Jorge too once, made him strong to help people. At least, she thought that was what had happened. It didn't matter, because now she didn't have to pull the wagon and she would get her medcin'. She “ooo ooo'd” happily to herself as she faded into the darkness, her hands opening and closing like birds.
“Remarkable,” said Dr. Hyperion, a man who once had been someone in the streets of Above. Geneticist, PHD, biologist. Too many degrees to remember, and none of it mattered anymore. Now he served the people of Below, and hid from the ones Above. The ones who would pry his final secrets from him to fund their black research in... so many things.
“Remarkable.”
The meat glowed and writhed trying to find its path back to what it had been before. But that road was lost forever. Now it would have to be something else.
–
“Four.”
The voice was harsh, guttural and raw. The vocal cords were still regenerating, and their incompleteness made him sound like a seventy-year chain smoker. Bright yellow eyes focused on the card Jorge held up at the other end of the warehouse, neither Jorge nor the card being visible to Hyperion, who stood next to the man and scribbled a mark down on a clipboard. It didn't matter that Hyperion couldn't see it: he'd created the sequence earlier and knew the order the cards would be revealed. “Rabbit. Seven. House.” The cards fell, shapes and objects flickering in the dark for nearly ten minutes.
The doctor eventually nodded, satisfied. “Good. Perfect.” He raised his voice. “Thank you Jorge! You can join us now!”
A muffled thumping could be heard as the rocky man trudged back towards them. Jorge tipped the scale at nearly a thousand pounds, and could easily lift a truck in one hand. He had been one of Hyperion's early successes, and had helped the doctor escape the lab all those years ago.
When Hyperion found out what had been done to his family.
When Hyperion found out what had been done to his family.
When he discovered the lie.
“Why?” rasped the other man. “Why the... cards.”
“We're checking your visual acuity. Also object recognition,” replied the doctor, scribbling another note on the clipboard. He looked up as Jorge approached and accepted the cards from a hand of granite and concrete. “Thank you Jorge.” The man with the birds eyes studied Jorge, the doctor, the warehouse.
Everything. Always looking, always watching.
“Why?”
“Because,” Hyperion said as he packed away the cards in a shoebox, which he then placed atop a large metal crate. “Everything we do, everything you remember and can recognize, will help us to understand what you retained and what you lost in your accident.”
“Not.”
Hyperion was placing an old CRT monitor atop a crate that Jorge had moved into position. “Not what?” he asked.
“Not.”
The doctor paused, turning to study the hunched figure in the gloom. It's eyes gleamed, the tiny pupils absorbing and reflecting the light in the shadows of the hoodie pulled low over it's face. Blood stained the clothing that concealed wide swaths of raw flesh and muscle - cellular regeneration was still occurring, and it must have hurt quite a bit where the rough cloth abraded raw nerve endings. It had been two months since this man's remains had been delivered into Hyperion's care. Two months of extensive DNA re-sequencing, protein baths and pain. Two bloody months. And oh, that blood. That special, special blood. The promise in that blood! Hyperion had made changes – he'd had to, or this being wouldn't have become what it was. When the light had faded, its power exhausted, the blood had undergone a change of such enormity, guided by biometric calculations no one but Hyperion could have crafted...
“Tell me.” said Hyperion, remembering. “Not what?”
Jorge lifted the CPU out of the iron crate and delicately set it next to the monitor.
“Accident. Not accident.” coughed the man with the birds eyes.
Hyperion waited, letting this play out as it would. The bloody man said nothing more, just snarled softly, enamel-coated nails gouging tiny lines in the grimy cement of the warehouse floor, its breathing labored and heavy. Hyperion suspected there would be nothing more, so he went back to work assembling the PC as Jorge lifted other instruments from the iron crate, placing them carefully around the doctor. It would come in time. Or it wouldn't. Forcing things at this point would be counter-productive. Still, he felt a thrill of excitement at the prospect of learning more about his strange ward.
Dee Santy Claus.
He plugged the computer into a portable power supply and booted it, the light from the monitor bathing his face. He flipped other switches, bringing his equipment to life.
Life.
“Come over here, please. We need to draw some more blood.”
Obedience was near instantaneous.
Imprinting? Pack behavior? There was as much animal as man in its genes after all, and Hyperion had been a constant in it's rebirth. Was the closest thing it had to a parent, so it was possible.
The doctor worked steadily into the night, his creations a comfort and a mystery to him and themselves. And outside, the city prepared to celebrate the turning of the year, and the announcement of a new team of heroes funded by an old family of monsters.
Hyperion knew about monsters. They more often than not wore a human face, and thought themselves good and decent people. But living Below had helped him to understand.
Let them celebrate above. It would fall apart eventually. They'd gone outside their circle, brought in outsiders to operate in their name. The green light of the monitor gleamed in the bird mans eyes, softened the crags and pits in Jorge's stony exterior, and deepened the dark circles under Hyperion's tired hazel eyes. Yes, let them celebrate. Hyperion's time was ending, but he wasn't afraid. He would go to meet his family soon, and this knowledge gave him the strength to continue.
“You need a name,” He said, more to himself than anyone else.
The image of his son's face smiling in the bright light of a summer afternoon filled his mind.
“I hope you like Adam. It's a good name.”
“Adam,” the bird-man repeated. “Adam.”
Hyperion smiled.
- Torchwood's blog
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Comments
And so it begins... Sorry. I
And so it begins...
Sorry. I just felt it had to be said.
Not sure if this reminds me
Not sure if this reminds me more of Neverwhere or Jokertown?
Reminds me of Doctor
Reminds me of Doctor Goodheart from New York Knights.
vera nice
This was so creepy and gooey and icky!
I loved it. ...and how this doctor is like the Godfather of the below.
You've done some great work building his allies and giving them some life. These guys are going to be fanatically loyal to the doctor, very exciting stuff.
Sometimes I feel like a player in my own game, and this is one of those times. :) Love it!
Ew. Great writing there,
Ew.
Great writing there, man. Love Dr. Hyperion.