Part
7: Rose in Bloom
Katherine
rocked her son gently, singing Lotte's
lullaby under her breath. On her left sat Alex Rosewater, arms folded
and gaze
locked straight ahead. To her right, Lotte was slumped into the leather
seat,
her mechanical frame still stunned by the charge of Alex's sinister
device. The
windows were too dark to see out, and dread rippled along Katherine's
spine.
"Where
are you taking us?" she asked
again.
Unlike
the last two times she'd demanded an answer,
Alex sighed through clenched teeth. "I told you. You're going to be
staying with the others until it's time."
"Time
for what?" she pried.
The
interior lights of the car glinted on Alex's
frosty smile. "What did the android tell you, Katherine? Did she
prophesy
about the baby at your breast?"
Katherine
held Roger closer. "I don't know
what you're talking about."
Alex
chuckled. "You do realize that her memory
will be wiped, don't you? She won't remember you or your son."
It was
as if he had dropped an icicle down the back
of her neck. "You--you can't!" She threw a desperate glance toward
the slack form. Lotte looked so vulnerable, with her copper hair strewn
across
her face and her dark eyes in shadow. "She has as much right to her
memories as anyone!"
"Memories."
Alex turned his gaze to the
glossy black partition separating them from the driver. "That's what
this
is all about. Congratulations, Katherine. You just may be more
perceptive than
my father gave you credit for."
The
car slowed to a stop, and Lotte's door opened
to reveal two men in Rose Terrace livery. "Where do you want this, Mr.
Rosewater?" one of them asked, eyeing the android warily.
"Alex."
Katherine didn't move from her
spot. She raised her head and glared at Alex. "Lotte knows Roger. Even
if
you take that memory away from her, she will find him."
Waving
her words away, Alex snorted. "That's
nonsense. It's like unplugging a toaster, or snapping off a
lightswitch. How
could you think this android is any different?"
"Because,"
Katherine seethed, sliding
painfully across the slick leather seat, Roger still tucked securely in
her
arms. "You didn't see her when she held Roger. They are
bound together,
Alex. There is nothing in this world that can change that." She strode
bravely toward the two muscled guards standing at the
wrought-iron gate set
into the rose-covered hedges.
"Let
me enlighten you," Alex growled, gripping
Katherine's bicep when she would have swept past him. "We’re going to
unscrew the top of her head and stick an industrial-strength magnet in
her
skull. In less than two seconds, she won't even know her own name, much
less
remember your son's." He grinned mirthlessly as Katherine
blanched. "Of course, we're not sure androids can feel pain.
There's
so much about the core technology we still don't
understand. Even if she does,
well, androids aren't too good at being able to articulate such things."
Katherine
yanked her arm away from Alex's grip. A
glob of spittle flew from between her lips to land on his cheek. "Go to
hell." She waited until the guards had unlocked the gate,
and stepped
through without looking back.
Alex
wiped his cheek with a red silk handkerchief.
"You have no idea," Alex muttered to himself, as the gate clanged
shut behind Katherine.
A red
rubber ball bounced across Katherine’s path,
and she made a quick sidestep to avoid getting the ball underfoot. The
ball hit
the hedge and lodged itself underneath the branches. Up
ahead, a small blond
boy scrambled up the flagstone path on the hunt for his toy, dark eyes
flicking
this way and that. Spotting Katherine and Roger, the
boy gave a small
gasp and moved back a step.
“Jason!”
A woman’s voice floated over the tall
hedges, and a young blond woman rounded the corner. The sunlight lit
stray
hairs that had escaped from her chignon; apparently Jason
was proving
especially elusive this morning. “There you are! Don’t go running off
like
that.” The woman stopped in the middle of the path after
she, too, spotted
Katherine and Roger.
“Oh!
Hello.” The woman laid her hand on Jason’s
shoulder, and the boy buried his face in his mother’s skirt. “He’s shy
sometimes around strangers.” She dropped to her knees and lifted her
son’s chin
in her hand. “Can you say hello to the nice lady?”
The
boy glanced at Katherine skeptically. “Hello,”
he piped.
“Hello,
Jason,” Katherine nodded. “I’m Mrs.
Rosew—ah, that is, I’m Ms. Smith.”
“We
don’t stand on ceremony here,” the blond woman
smiled. “I’m Tina. Tina Beck.”
“Then
I’m Katherine. This is my son, Roger.”
Tina
leaned forward and cooed at Roger. “Oh, what a
darling boy. I can’t imagine why Gordon—“ Her face fell, and she
hurried to
reclaim Jason’s lost toy from the rosebush. “Here,
sweetheart. The others will
be missing us.”
Katherine
lunged forward a step. “Please—what were
you going to say?”
Tina
stopped for a moment, and then turned back
halfway. “You’d think by now I wouldn’t say such things.”
Katherine
took another step toward Tina. “What
things?”
Tina
turned around, her smoky quartz eyes begging
Katherine: Please don’t ask me any more.
Katherine
swallowed noisily. “You can’t imagine why
Gordon…what?”
Tina
lowered her gaze to the path. “I can’t imagine
why Gordon…wouldn’t want to raise Roger as his own.” She closed her
eyes and
shook her head. “I can understand why my boy…well, I had
hoped he would take
after his father.” She smoothed Jason’s golden hair, sifting his saffron
cowlick
through her fingers. The boy blinked, clutching his toy tightly.
Katherine’s
head was spinning. “I still don’t
understand,” she whispered, gazing at her son’s placid, beautiful face.
She
looked up at the touch of Tina’s hand on her
shoulder. “Come,” the blond woman said gently. “Let’s get you settled.
Perhaps
in time, you will find answers to your questions.”
~*****~
With
Paradigm’s perpetually cloudy skies, it was
more of an art and less of a science for the light tenders in East Town
to get
the right mix of natural light to sunlamps. However,
today seemed
especially bright, and as Alex strode from the foyer into the sunny
atrium, he
marveled at the perfectly balanced illumination.
“Hello, Dad,” Alex
said, stooping to kiss his father’s cheek. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
Gordon
didn’t look up from his newspaper as Alex
took his seat at the opposite end of the long table. “Mmm. Did you take
care of
that errand I asked you to?”
Alex
smiled his thanks at Norman, who was pouring
coffee into Alex’s cup. “Yes, I did. She wasn’t happy about it.”
“Hmm.
I don’t expect she was, at that.” Gordon
shook the paper and folded it neatly. “Did she sign the papers?”
“On
the second try, but yes, she did.” Alex removed
a cream-colored envelope from his jacket pocket. He gave the
envelope to
Norman, who moved the eight steps to deliver it to Gordon.
“She was a little
hard to convince.”
“She’s
got spirit, that one.” Gordon shook
out his napkin and draped it over his knee. “That’s why I married her,”
he added,
as Norman replaced the coffee pot on the sideboard and went
to retrieve the
trolley.
Alex
sipped his coffee. “I never understood
that. Why did you marry her, out of all the others?” His face
fell, and
he put down his cup. “Did she please you more than my
mother did?”
Gordon
sighed. “I would have married your
mother, Heaven rest her soul, but she took matters into her own hands
before I
had a chance. It’s nothing short of a miracle that you
survived.”
As
Norman glided back in with the silver-domed
trolley, Alex tried once again to imagine his poor, doomed mother.
Gordon had
told Alex the story when the boy was eleven; how one night,
a lost soul
approached Gordon on the street, offering him her body in exchange for
money,
and how Gordon saw something golden underneath the cheap
clothes and the heavy
makeup. Gordon burnished her into a jewel with fine clothes and an
education,
and despite a solemn vow to himself, he took her to his bed for one
brilliant,
blinding night of passion. When she discovered she was pregnant,
the hormone
fluctuations in her brain cracked her shining façade to reveal
the rotting mass
underneath. Overnight, the girl became a raving witch, and
in her eighth month,
threw herself headlong down the balustrade. Only the most skilled of
Paradigm’s
physicians had been able to rescue Alex from the womb that so easily
could have
been his grave.
Norman
delivered twin plates of bacon, toast, and
soft-boiled eggs to the men, and then stepped back from the
table. “Will
there be anything else, sir?” he asked Gordon.
“Nothing
right now, Norman, thank you,” Gordon
nodded, cracking his egg with the back of his spoon. “I do have
an errand
for you, but that can wait until after breakfast.”
“Very
good, sir.” Norman bowed and left the
men to their repast.
After
the butler was out of earshot, Gordon sighed
heavily. “No sense in prolonging the inevitable.” He shook his
head.
“It’s a damned shame, having to lose Norman. I’ll never
find another like him.”
Alex
dropped his spoon with a clatter, fury
simmering in his eyes. “So it’s true. You’ve really chosen that boy
over me?”
“Alex,”
Gordon began gently, “Numbers don’t lie. I
had the lab run his tests twice. Every cell in that boy’s body rings
true; he
is Dominus.” He wiped his mouth with his
napkin. “And as Dominus,
he’ll need someone to protect him. He’ll need to have something to
spark the
connection, to touch the flame to the fuse, if you will.”
Tears
filled Alex’s dark eyes. “What about
me, Dad?” He gripped white-knuckled fistfuls of the tablecloth.
“Who’s
going to strike the match for me?”
“I
know you tested positive for some of the cues,
son, but Roger—“
“Roger
Smith,” Alex spat through clenched
teeth. “He’s not even going to carry your name, Dad! How can he
be
Dominus?”
Gordon’s
face was grim. “You must accept what
is, my son. Roger is Dominus. Any effort of yours—or anyone else’s—to
try and
skew that fate will be doomed.” He glanced at his
watch. “We’ve wasted
enough time on your foolishness, Alex.”
“But—“
Gordon
took the tablecloth in both hands and pulled
it off the table, carrying china, silver, and crystal with it onto the
floor. At the horrific crash, Norman came at the run.
“Sir?
What in—Oh, my Heavens!” Immediately,
Norman dropped to his knees and began picking up the broken china.
“Ah,
it’s my fault,” Gordon sighed, motioning
surreptitiously for Alex to come stand behind Norman. “I mistook
the edge
of the tablecloth for my napkin, and I took it with me when
I stood up to
refill my coffee.”
“Never
mind, sir; accidents will happen,” Norman
was saying, just before the knife-like edge of Alex’s hand dug deep
into the
nerves at the base of Norman’s neck. The butler
immediately went limp and
crumpled to the carpet.
Gordon
stepped forward and checked the butler’s
pulse. “Good. He’s okay, just out cold. Damn fine work, my boy.”
Hating
himself for it, Alex found himself thrilling
to the modicum of praise. “Thank you, Dad.” He glanced up at the
two men
in groundskeepers’ overalls who had been waiting outside
the door. “Take
him the same place you took the android.”
The
men lifted the butler’s slack form, and as Alex
made to follow them, Gordon stopped his firstborn with a hand on his
forearm. “Remember, my son,” he cautioned.
“Hinder the boy, and you’ll
only dig your own grave. Do you understand me?”
“It
should have been me,” Alex said without
emotion, then turned and left the dining room.
~*****~
Everything
was pleasantly dark, and he floated
along peacefully, outside time. Then a bright light pierced the
darkness,
blinding him, and he lifted his hand to stave off the light.
“Norman,”
said a voice that sounded like
thunder. “Norman Burg.”
Is
that my name? “Y…yes.
Yes?” He squinted to make out strange shadows thrown by someone
standing in
front of the light. “Yes. I am…Norman Burg.”
“And
what is your purpose, Norman?”
Casting
back into the foggy expanse of his memory,
Norman searched for the item in question. “To…to serve the
Dominus.”
“And
who is your Dominus?”
The
man wept for joy. How fortunate he was, to know
his place, to have a purpose! And such a purpose, such a task!
“That dear
boy—Roger Smith.”
A
harpy’s cry split the air, filling Norman’s
head with red, red rage. “Roger Smith!”
“No—You
mustn’t!” Norman balled his hands into
fists. “I won’t let you have him!”
“Roger
Smith!” The
shriek
echoed for what seemed like eternity. “Die, NEGOTIATOR!”
The first voice boomed out again. “Seal away the
abomination until the appointed hour!” The harpy screamed in
fury, but
soon its cries were muffled, and then stilled altogether.
Norman’s
vision cleared just enough to see a
handsome young man in a red shirt standing over him. “Who…who are
you?”
Norman queried, his throat dry.
The
young man smiled. “The new order,” he
replied.
DISCLAIMER:
I don't own Big O; Sunrise, Inc. does.
I do, however, own this original story.
<= Part 4
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