Synthetic: Dark Beginning (8 page)

“Of course it is.  Ruby is noted for her pioneering work in synthetic biology during the early part of the century, but her work is highly flawed and very controversial. In fact, Mirafield forbade her from creating any more sentient creatures without strict oversight. That’s why your brothers are degenerating and you are in perfect condition and will remain so indefinitely.”

“Indefinitely?”

“Synthetics of your quality live at least five hundred years. There’s even one now that will live forever.  Or so I’ve heard through the grapevine.”

Vaughn tried to move his legs but they wouldn’t budge. He felt frozen.  This was the last thing he'd expected to hear.  “I don’t understand. If Ruby didn’t make me, who did?”

Dr. Kimura’s face lit up at the question. “Mirafield’s lead designer.  A genius of a girl who came out of nowhere ten years ago and started making synthetics that blew everyone else's work away.  There’s a rumor that she’s Ruby’s daughter.”

Vaughn laughed and shook his head. “I doubt it. Ruby hates children and she would never have allowed herself to get pregnant. What did this woman look like?”

“Mid twenties with medium-brown skin and turquoise hair. Amazing that a girl that young could be so accomplished.”

“I’m ten years old. Are you saying she created me when she was a teenager?”

“I suppose she did.  You are Kora's first synthetic human.  You should be proud.”

“Proud?”  Vaughn rose from the file cabinet. He felt relieved to learn that this old woman was a nutcase because now he could disregard everything she’d told him. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Kimura, but I need to go.”

Dr. Kimura chased after him as he strode through the living room toward the front door. “Maybe you can return another time? I still have tests I’d like to run. Maybe you can alert me next time and I can have a group of my colleagues here to receive you?”

“Probably not.” He paused when Dr. Kimura laid a hand on his arm.

“I know you don’t believe me, but what I said about you and your brothers is true. I’m writing a book about Mirafield so I’ve done a great deal of research.”

Vaughn walked back up to his car while Dr. Kimura waved from her front porch. He dropped into the bucket seat and rested his head on the steering wheel.  Dr. Kimura’s revelations didn’t seem possible. He had plenty of memories of Ruby during his first months alive—all of them unpleasant—but he couldn’t remember anyone else aside from occasional flashes of Caleb. Vaughn would certainly have noticed a brown skinned girl with blue hair.

He felt tired and his neck ached. Once he reached the empty highway that cut through Ruby’s property, he allowed his mind to drift from the road up into the yellow afternoon sky. His vision slipped into the warmth of a reoccurring daydream where he lay at the bottom of a deep pool, staring up at a perfect blue sky laced with fluffy white clouds. He watched as a familiar blur that always leaned over him came into startling focus. It was a creature with gray skin that was roughly stitched together like a handmade doll. It gazed down at him with shining dark eyes, the face distorted by ripples in the water. Vaughn lifted his arm from the wheel and reached out to touch it, but the vision evaporated before his fingers broke the surface.

Chapter 8

Ruby slid her legs off the desk and bent down to rub the tangle of veins that swelled just above her ankles. She knew she should order Ivan to install a comfortable bed in her office, but she didn’t want Gustavo to catch her lying down. At least propped up, she might fool the conniving hunchback into thinking that she was awake. Ruby rose onto unsteady feet, startled to see a figure looming in the doorway. “Who’s there?”

A lithe young man with wet hair stepped forward, his face ripe with cuts and swollen bruises. Ruby recognized him as Max’s troublesome son, Joshua, a shadow of a man whose only redeeming quality was his magnificent talent for swimming. Ruby had crossed him a few times during her nightly swim as he paddled his board out to meet the waves. He was built like a serpent and she admired the sleek strokes of his wiry arms.

“You’re Ruby?”

“What can I do for you?”

Joshua held out a damp hand but Ruby ignored it. “Are you writing a book?” He pointed at the pile of paper on her desk.

“It’s no concern of yours,” said Ruby. “It’s a script I’ve worked on for many years now.”

Joshua seemed impressed and Ruby felt a twinge of graciousness toward the wormy young man. She flourished her hand as if drawing a scene in the air around them and raised her voice to a dramatic pitch. “It’s about a vampire who awakes after many years buried at sea. He swims ashore and wanders across the sand until he finds a small village where he slaughters—”

“I saw that movie,” exclaimed Joshua. “It starred that old guy—Darius Windsor—who used to be a big heartthrob about a thousand years ago. But instead of a village, there’s this beach camp packed with hot teenage girls on a cheerleading retreat. Tons of blood and gore—dismembered babes strewn all over the place moaning in agony as the vampire laps up their blood like a goddamn dog. Amazing movie. You wrote the script for that?”

Ruby sank into her chair and bent her plume as she gazed at all the handwritten pages strewn about her desk. Her memory drifted back to an evening, years earlier, when she’d invited Darius over for dinner and shown him an early outline of her idea for a new show. Though he didn’t make much of it at the time, he’d obviously liked it enough to steal it.

“Where did you see this movie? The Food doesn’t even have electricity.”

“You haven’t seen the compound in a while.  A few years ago, Humphrey gave Ramon all these kick-ass solar panels you made him rip off the castle roof.  Then we just downloaded it off some old website.”

Ruby dug a black nail into a soft pile of paper as she stared at the words scrawled across the page, many of them crossed out. “Seems there are a number of things I’m not aware of.  I’ve been isolated for some time now, but that will soon change.” She sensed that Joshua was still hovering and turned to face him with her usual, cold smile set firmly in place. “So did you come here just to crush my creative endeavors, or was there something else?”

Joshua stared at her in confusion and Ruby rolled her eyes.
“Why–are–you–here?”

“I just thought you might like to know what your lame-ass vampire has been up to today.”

“I’m sure if I asked him he’d tell me.”

“I bet not.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to inform me, won’t you?” She drummed her fingernails on the desk while Joshua sucked in his cheeks as if struggling to tally something in his head.

“If I tell you, then you have to make him kill Max.  Kill him in front of everyone.”

“Very well,” said Ruby. “I’ll sic my vampire on Max tomorrow night. Or is that too early?”

“No—that’s great.” Joshua seemed surprised, as if he hadn’t expected her to agree. “Tomorrow night’s good.”

“It’s been a long time since I watched Vaughn eat. Could be fun. Now tell me, what has he been up to today. If it has to do with those beach sluts our deal is off.”

“He drove one of your cars up north. I saw him myself.”

Ruby pursed her lips as she turned this information over in her head. “Is that all?”

Joshua shrugged. “That’s enough, isn’t it?”

“Plenty. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get on with my work. You’ll find your own way out?”

His crooked grin disappeared. “I can do that, but it would be great if I could use the front door.”

“We haven’t used the front door in ages. I’d prefer you slither out the same way you slithered in.”

Joshua shivered as he nodded his head. Then he disappeared down the hall, leaving a trail of wet footprints. Ruby swept her script off the desk sending an explosion of paper into the air.  She stormed down to Kora’s lab where she found Gus meticulously cleaning the coffee machine with an old toothbrush.

“Back to your cage.” Ruby’s heels clacked across the floor. Gus yawned and stretched as if he’d just put in an arduous day.

“But it’s still light out,” said Kora.

“Doesn’t matter.” Ruby waited until Gus was gone before sinking onto the couch against the wall. “They all lie to me. Darius—that little shit. I’ve felt guilty for years because I missed his funeral but now I hope he’s in hell.” Ruby’s shoulders slumped as if her anger was the only thing holding her up. “I’m sick of growing old. I have no patience with it. There’s no wisdom—no epiphany. I’m just rotting away…surrounded by idiots.” A smile lifted her sagging cheeks when she raised her face to Kora. “At least I still look better than you.” A laugh rumbled up her throat.

Kora seemed confused by this insult. “We all get old and eventually we die,” she said in the disconnected tone of a physician.

“Not me. My existence will be linear and never ending.”

“Nothing lasts forever.”

“You and I will.”

Kora pretended to repair one of her machines.  “You should go lie down. You’ve obviously experienced some kind of shock and you’re not making any sense.”

“You think I should stay human, don’t you?”

Kora paused and Ruby could tell she was choosing her words carefully. “I’ve never performed this procedure before.  If I do it, I know you’ll die.”

“I’ll take my chances. It’s better than waking up every morning to see my flesh has moved a few inches closer to the grave.”

“I’ve done some amazing cosmetic surgery on Randall over the years. Why don’t we try that instead?”

Ruby felt a wave of loathing crash through her. “Your work on Randall makes me want to puke. I would rather die than end up looking like that moron—an old man sliced up and stitched back together into a caricature of his young self. I never made a mutant that disgusted me, but every time I see Randall I feel sick.”  She shoved herself up off the couch.  Her feet hurt and she wished she could just spend the rest of the evening in bed with Ivan massaging her legs, but there was too much to do. “Keep working.  I'll check on you in the morning.”

Ruby swept down the hall, her mind racing ahead of her. “Ivan—meet me in the garage,” she said into the air as she scraped her nails along the side of a large stone. A panel jerked sideways, revealing a narrow slot. Ruby crammed herself through the opening and barreled down the curves until she reached a tunnel marked by a large gouge in the left wall that vaguely resembled a car. A heavy rock wall loomed at the end with several stones jutting up from the floor, one shinier than the others. Ruby gave this stone an impatient whack and the wall slid aside to reveal Ivan dressed in a chauffeur’s uniform with gold driving gloves and a little feathered hat perched on his head.

“We’re not going for a drive. I want to see the car Vaughn drove off the property today,” said Ruby.

Ivan sputtered before he was finally able to speak. “Car Mistress?”

“You heard me.”

Ivan slouched through the maze of cars and stopped before her luxury row.

“Let me guess.” Ruby waved a finger in the air that finally landed on the battered Aston Martin. “He drove that one.”

Ivan scanned the demolished frame. “That bastard. I’ll kill him!”

“You didn’t know?”

“I arrived here right before you so I didn’t have time to inspect.”

“Where did he go?”

Ivan paused, but then his eyes narrowed on the smashed door. “To Santa Barbara.”

“Why?”

“To see someone named Kimura. I don’t know why.”

Ruby’s back stiffened. “He knows everything then. That woman is a notorious spy incapable of keeping her mouth shut. How did he find out about her?”

Ivan fidgeted with his uniform.

“Ivan!”

“I found her card in your trash…along with a letter that said she’s writing a book. Sounded very interesting and—”

Ruby smacked Ivan hard across the face. “You root through my garbage like a rat?”

“Yes, Mistress,” said Ivan. He removed one of his gold gloves and rubbed his cheek.

“Do you remember how you went mad years ago?”

Ivan’s voice cracked. “Yes, mistress.”

“I can do worse that that. If you hide anything from me again, I’ll press the button and tear your brain to shreds.”

“Like Kora?” Ivan trembled as he gazed up at Ruby.

The imp was fishing for information. Maybe Kora had asked him to snoop in exchange for some horrid sexual favor. Ruby's head already pounded enough without contemplating Ivan's perverted dealings around the castle. She needed Kora working, not listening to sordid rumors.
“You think I had anything to do with that?”

“I assumed—”

“You assumed wrong.  Her memory loss has been a great inconvenience to us. That won’t be the case with your puny brain.” A slight twitch lifted the side of Ruby’s mouth.  “Speaking of Kora, she thinks you and Caleb are disgusting mistakes and I should put you both out of your misery.  Maybe she has a point.”

Ivan curled his tiny hands into fists.  “I hate that girl.  What a load of garbage.  Without Caleb and I, this place would be a disaster.”

“True.  But I think she was speaking from more of an aesthetic point of view.”  Ruby leaned down and pressed her nail against Ivan's tiny nose. “Make me want to continue seeing your ugly face around here, Ivan, or I might take her up on this advice.”

Ivan shuffled in place, his eyes fixed on the toes of his polished boots. “Please mistress, I won’t let anything like this happen again. From now on, I’ll keep you well informed.”