In the instant that they clasped hands, the storm that had thus far been without pyrotechnics abruptly exploded with lightning. The sky flared violently, and the focus of Nature’s sudden fury seemed to be the GL550. Barrages of thunderbolts slammed into the pavement around the vehicle, so numerous and so perfectly encircling that from every window nothing could be seen of the night or the land or the tank farm, only a screen of light so bright that Jocko and Erika bowed their heads. And though neither of them spoke, they both heard the same three words and somehow knew that the other had heard them as well:
Deucalion turned to Carson and Michael. “You pledged to fight at my side, and fight you did. The world has gained a little time. We destroyed the man … but his ideas did not die with him. There are those who would deny free will to others … and there are too many willing to surrender their free will, in every sense of its meaning.”
“Busting bad guys is easy,” Carson said, “compared to fighting bad ideas. Fighting ideas … that’s a life’s work.”
Deucalion nodded. “So let’s live long lives.”
Making the
Picking up Duke as if he were a lap dog, the giant cradled the shepherd in his right arm and with his left hand rubbed its tummy. “I’ll walk with you to the surface, bring Arnie from Tibet, then it’s good-bye. I need to find a new retreat, where I can say my thanks, and think about these two hundred years and what they’ve meant.”
“And maybe we could see the coin trick once more,” Michael said.
Deucalion regarded them both in silence for a moment. “I could show you how it’s done. Such knowledge would be safe in your hands.”
Carson knew that he meant not just the coin trick, but all that he knew — and could do. “No, my friend. We’re ordinary people. Such power should remain with someone extraordinary.”
They walked together to the surface, where the wind had blown and the rain had washed the first light of dawn into the eastern sky.
In the windowless Victorian room, the reddish-gold substance, whether liquid or gas, drained from the glass casket, and the form that had been a shapeless shadow resolved into a man.
When the empty case opened like a clamshell, the naked man swung into a sitting position, then stepped onto the Persian carpet.
The satellite-relayed signal had been a death sentence to all the other meat machines made by Victor, but by design it had not killed this one, but instead freed him.
He walked out through the open steel doors that would have kept him contained if by mistake he’d been animated before he was wanted.
James lay dead in the library. Upstairs, he found Christine dead in the vestibule of the master suite.
The house was quiet and otherwise apparently deserted.
In Victor’s bathroom, he showered.
In the mirrored alcove in the corner of Victor’s walk-in closet, he admired his body. No metal cables wove through it, and he did not bear the scars of two centuries. He was physical perfection.
After dressing, he took a briefcase to the walk-in safe. There, he discovered that some valuables were not where they should have been. But other drawers offered all that he needed.
He would leave the mansion on foot. He was so wary of having any connection with Victor Helios that he would not even use one of the cars merely to abandon it at the airport.
Before he left, he set the Dresden countdown for half an hour. Both the house and the dormitory would soon be ashes.
He wore a raincoat with a hood, aware of the irony of departing in garb reminiscent of the great brute’s current costume.
Although he was the very image of Victor Frankenstein, he was not in fact the man, but instead a clone. By virtue of direct-to-brain data downloading, however, his memory matched Victor’s, all 240 years of it, except for the events of the past eighteen hours or so, which was the last time Victor had conducted a memory update for him, by phone transmission. He was like Victor also in that he shared Victor’s vision for the world.
This was not precisely personal immortality, but an acceptable substitute.
In a fundamental way, the recently deceased and this recently born individual were different. This Victor was stronger, quicker, and perhaps even more intelligent than the original. Not perhaps. Most definitely more intelligent. He was the new and improved Victor Frankenstein, and the world needed him now more than ever.
CHAPTER 72
This world is a world of stories, of mystery and enchantment. Everywhere you look, if you look close enough, a tale of wonder is unfolding, for every life is a narrative and everyone a character in his or her own drama.
In San Francisco, the O’Connor-Maddison Detective Agency not long ago celebrated its first year. They were a success almost from the day they opened for business. A hand laid on him by a tattooed healer has brought Arnie out of autism. He works in the office after school, doing some filing and learning hard-boiled lingo. Duke adores him. Seven months from now, a baby will complicate the sleuthing. But that’s what they make infant carriers for. Hang the kid on the chest or sling him from the back, and there’s no reason not to keep pursuing truth, justice, bad guys, and good Chinese food.
In a small house on a large property in rural Montana, Erika has discovered a talent for motherhood, and she is fortunate to have, in Jocko, a perpetual child. Thanks to what she took from Victor’s safe, they have all the money they will ever need. They don’t travel, and only she goes into town, because they don’t want to have to deal with all the brooms and buckets. The local birds, however, have gotten used to him, and he’s never feeling pecked anymore, in any sense. He has a collection of funny hats, all with bells, and she has developed a contagious laugh. They don’t know why only they survived, of all those made of New Race flesh, but it had something to do with the lightning. So every night, when she tucks him in, she makes him say his prayers, as she does, too, before she sleeps.
At St. Bartholomew’s Abbey, in the great mountains of northern California, Deucalion resides as a guest, while he considers becoming a postulant. He enjoys all the brothers, and has a special friendship with Brother Knuckles. He has learned much from Sister Angela, who runs the associated orphanage, and the disabled children there think he is the best Santa Claus ever. He does not try to envision his future. He waits for it to find him.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DEAN KOONTZ is the author of many #1
Correspondence for the author should be addressed to:
Dean Koontz
P.O. Box 9529
Newport Beach, California 92658
