Episode Six: Hunting Hidden Faces: The Science Investigations team's search for a saboteur leads them to rogue scientists and clandestine experiments into human cloning.
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Hunting
Hidden Faces
(continued)
“Ceecees and pups?” Standing beside her desk, Dr. Cavanaugh spoke the words with her arms folded tight across her small chest. “I take it that’s some sort of Science Investigations slang?”
As Steve explained that pups were mind control victims, ceecees were carbon copies of real people, Gwen studied the redheaded woman in the white lab coat. Steve’s right, this is pointless. One patient’s family complains about their son, they happen to be old friends of Sen. Townsend, so Cavanaugh goes on the investigations list.
“Does this have anything to do with Mildred Glass?” Cavanaugh said suddenly. “I know she claims her husband isn’t the man he was before I cured his alcoholism—”
“She’s one of several,” Gwen replied. “They say they’re not only cured, they’re changed—or replaced.”
“I’ve worked with drug addicts, depressives, battle-fatigue victims and paranoid schizophrenics, of course they go home changed. And they’ve been tested, correct?”
“Sure,” Steve said. “Dr. Chang says you not only fixed whatever was wrong with them, they’re free of pretty much any neuroses. Way above average.”
“That’s because we follow up electroshock with intensive psychotherapy to complete the process of change.” The doctor unfolded her arms and opened her cigarette box. “The discomfort is perfectly understandable: Mrs. Glass spent three years as the de facto head of the family, it’s not surprising she’d be uncomfortable with her husband being able to reassert his rightful authority.”
Gwen nodded. “We realize this is an intrusion, doctor, but if we miss one case of alien infiltration—” Steve’s wrist-radio buzzed; Gwen clicked her tongue. “How many times have I told you to put it on standby during interviews?”
“I’ll take it out in the hall, sorry.” He flashed Cavanaugh a sheepish smile and walked out quickly.
“Miss Montgomery, is there really any point to further conversation?” Dr. Cavanaugh said. “I have three electroshock sessions this afternoon that I need to prepare for. With any luck, three schizophrenics—all human—will be able to return to their families inside of a month.”
“I apologize doctor. And since we have no further cause to investigate—”
“Okay, doc.” Steve strode back into the office and Gwen saw at once that something was up. “Does your treatment have anything to do with maybe using rogue psionic technology on people?” The doctor’s jaw dropped. “I got a message from Jo, the FBI traced a shipment here.”
“Well, that is interesting.” Gwen had no idea why Jo was talking to the FBI, but there was no point in leaving now. “Doctor, unless you want the publicity of Science Investigations going to court for a search warrant, you might want to—”
“It’s not possible.” Cavanaugh was breathing in short, nervous gasps, her long fingers flipping the lid of the cigarette box up and down. “Diomedes couldn’t possibly—”
“Diomedes?” Steve said.
“Diomedes Andropolous, the engineer who maintains the electroshock equipment. He did say he’d put in some modifications of his own—wait a second!” Cavanaugh slammed the box shut. “What could he possibly have done? You can’t suggest he’s mentally controlling the one hundred and sixty patients I’ve cured.”
“We can’t be sure what was done until we bring someone from headquarters to research your equipment,” Gwen said. “We’d like to take a look at once, and we could get Dr. White or Dr. Gould here probably before sunset.”
“Wait. Please, before this goes any further, give Dioemedes a chance to explain. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.” She reached for the intercom, paused and looked at Gwen; Gwen gave a nod, Cavanaugh flipped the switch. Gwen saw Steve’s hand drop to the butt of his gun, just in case. “Annette, please ask Dr. Andropolous to come in. I know he’s setting up the equipment, but tell him to shake a leg.”
A minute later, someone knocked on the office door, then opened without pausing. A tall swarthy man stepped inside, saw Steve and Gwen—and spun on his heel and raced out.
“Hold it buddy!” Steve had his gun drawn, racing after Andropolous—and as he ran through the doorway, Gwen saw him go limp as if he’d been pole-axed. She started forward, realized that was a mistake and turned—to find a luger in Dr. Cavanaugh’s hand pointing right between her eyes.
“I’m a healer, not a killer, Miss Montgomery. Please don’t force me to change that.”
“You’re also an excellent actor.” The doctor didn’t look comfortable with the gun; the longer they kept talking, the greater the chance she’d be distracted. “I didn’t suspect ‘shake a leg’ was a signal.”
“Faking emotional distress is easy when you understand the physical signs intimately. Just as luring your partner with a fleeing-prey scenario produced an automatic hunter’s response. Diomedes, can we have her—”
“It’ll take ten minutes for the stun-plate to rebuild the charge, I told you,” he replied in heavily accented English. He removed Steve’s gun, handed it to Cavanaugh’s secretary and then grabbed Steve by the ankles. “What now?”
“The transformation room, of course.” Cavanaugh frowned at Gwen, who was gauging the chance of snatching the gun away; it didn’t look good. “Please place your gun on my desk…that’s it. Now, follow Diomedes.”
Diomedes dragged Steve into the battleship-grey corridor; Gwen winced to see Steve’s slack mouth sliding along the dirty floor; she still had the derringer in her purse, but there was no chance to get to it yet.
Ten yards down the corridor, Andropolous let go of Steve and unlocked a heavy metal door. “Doctor, what good will transference do? Is it even medically ethical to use it on them?”
“It’s not going to hurt them, you know that. And if we can use the process to replace traumatic memories, perhaps we can implant the idea this meeting was perfectly routine…Or blame Markham for the illegal equipment! His death in that car crash makes him—what is it you cops say, the perfect patsy?”
“Well, I certainly don’t say that.” Gwen passed through the doorway. The room was filled with the wires, flashing lights and machines she expected in a rogue science operation, all hooked up at one end to a heavy metal chair. At the other— “What the devil is that?”
‘That’ was a plastic, human-shaped mold, with what looked like globs of bread dough dripping into it. Bread dough that wiggled and writhed.
“One of the patients found the original clump in a meteorite that landed on the grounds.” Cavanaugh said. “It duplicated his form but it was mindless; the mind transference technology we developed fixed that. Right now, I wish I hadn’t listened to Diomedes about upgrading—”
“You’ve been able to do so much more with a direct mental interface, doctor.”
“Even without it, we were able to eliminate every problematic brain defect and mental structure.”
“And then I suppose you kill the original patient,” Gwen said. “My compliments—you actually fooled me into thinking you cared about them.”
“She cares more than anyone I’ve ever met!” Andropolous said, dropping Steve on the far side of the room “The mind transfers to the new body, the person doesn’t die, they—”
“And what about the soul? Does that jump too or do you just create a blob that thinks it’s the original?” Get them angry. Get them angry before they put you in that chair! “First do no harm, isn’t that—”
“Enough!” Andropolous grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her into the chair, hard. “I will not have you insult the greatest woman who ever—”
He was between Gwen and the doctor’s Lugar. Gwen’s knee came up hard and Andropolous doubled over. She shoved him toward the doctor, scrambled behind the chair and drew her derringer.
“Damn you!” A couple of bullets from the Lugar forced Gwen to keep her head down. “There are so many people here who need this treatment!”
“Do you even know what that material is?” The question brought another bullet; if she emptied the clip, Gwen would have her chance. “Are the bodies stable? Do the minds stay human?”
“You said it yourself, they’re perfect.” Gwen heard the steel door slammed shut, looked up and saw they’d left the room. She raced over to the door, but wasn’t surprised it was locked. “Miss Montgomery, when you get out of there, walk the halls of this building. Look at the condition of my patients. Realize that every one of them could have left this place, healthy and happy, as soon as I’d grown enough protoplasm for their new bodies. And because of you, they’re imprisoned for life.
“Pay particular attention to Joe Fleagle. You took away his one chance at a normal existence and if there’s justice in heaven, you’ll never forget the sight of him.”
Gwen could just make out footsteps running back to the doctor’s office. She called Nate on her wrist-radio, knowing nobody would arrive in time to catch them.
“So it was a total cock-up?” Jo said into her wrist-radio. “I was trying to tell you not to do anything!”
“Wish I’d realized that,” Steve’s voice said with a sigh. “If they’d been willing to just kill us, I wouldn’t be having this conversation…As it is, the entire staff is gone, the hospital records are destroyed, we may never be able to identify all the patients that she transformed.
“And Jesus, those patients she left behind…I never thought I’d say this, but I don’t blame her for wanting to help them. Even this way.”
“It’s not help.” Jo saw Mickey and Trueblood look over at her and lowered her voice. “I was with Scotland Yard when the meteor creatures took over the government, remember? You can’t let them get a foothold, ever.”
“Well, they may have one—let’s hope she was right and they’ll go on thinking they’re human. Hope you guys are doing better.”
“The FBI has rented an office near the Magnum Club—Burke Clipping Bureau’s the name on the door now—and his partner’s down there watching,” Jo said. “There’s microphones in the lounge where Saunders is meeting, and Mickey agreed Trueblood and I could hang around. Just in case this ties into Chableau.”
“Mickey, huh?” Steve chuckled. “We’re heading back to Wind Song. Good luck.”
Jo broke contact, remembering what it was like to realize someone you were talking to wasn’t as human as they appeared—Stop it, you clot! You don’t need another nervous breakdown! “Mickey, anything yet?”
“He should be getting into the lounge at any second.” He studied her face with concern, but said nothing. “Wait, I think I hear his name—”
“Hi, Saunders.” Jo moved over to join Mickey and Trueblood next to the tape recorder.
“Hopkirk, good to see you.” The three of them heard Saunders voice clearly over the chatter and hubbub of the club. “Norman, scotch and soda please?”
The tape recorder whirred, putting down everything as Saunders bought his drink, settled into a chair, made desultory comments. Jo could hear the tension in his voice, and wondered if he’d be able to see it through. But as soon as the bloke shows up, Mickey’s partner’ll have him. And if he was involved with Chableau, we can settle the score for DeKalb and Hannah and everyone else who went for a burton.
Saunders fell silent. Long minutes passed with the chat ebbing and flowing and Saunders remained silent. And then, suddenly, someone said “What the hell is that smell? Is someone cooking pork in here?”
“I was wondering the same thing? Christ, it—”
“Saunders, buddy, you smell it?”
“Can’t you see? Albert’s dozed off.”
“Come on, wake up—”
The bloodcurdling yell that followed left Jo little doubt Saunders had not been asleep after all. And that whoever they were dealing with, he wasn’t going to be in their hands that night.
Applied Science 6: Hunting
HiddenFaces
by Fraser Sherman 1 2