'So, not only am I a grotesque partially dismembered zombie, but I'm the wrong gender. That really solidly fucks up any chance of a relationship between us, doesn't it?'
'Stanley, no offense, but you could look like Jennifer Garner and I wouldn't date you.'
'That stings.'
'It was meant to.'
'Wow. So, back to the badge thing. Do you think you could pretend you were cured?'
'Stanley!'
'Bad suggestion, bad suggestion, I know. So do you have a girlfriend?'
'I don't discuss my personal life with clients.'
'Oh, c'mon. I'm more than a client. Is she hot?'
'Of course she's hot.'
'Fingers or tongue?'
'Okay, no, we are not getting into my sex life, not even in jest.'
'Why not?' Stanley protested. 'Why can't I be interested in your homosexuality? I think we should share more intimate details with each other. You go first.'
'Yeah, right. I'm going to share my personal life with a chauvinist pig who gets off on the idea of two women going at it.'
'So you do go at it?'
'Enough!'
'Five more minutes?'
'Enough! This is exactly why I don't share these kinds of things with you.'
'There are more of those kinds of things to share?'
She smacked him on the shoulder.
'Ow! There was genuine malice behind that!'
'No, genuine malice would be to smack you on the shoulder that no longer had an arm.'
'You're right. That would be mean. Okay, forget the idea about flashing your goodies at Brant. I just need to see what's in the lab. Anything you could do, whether it's distracting him or bashing him over the head with a lead pipe would be hugely appreciated.'
Veronica traced her finger across her chin. 'You're really serious, aren't you?'
'Yeah.'
'I'll see what I can do.'
'That's all I can ask. Well, and to see videos. Can I see videos?'
She smacked him again.
Stanley sat on his bed. Though the first twenty minutes of his conversation with Martin had focused on Veronica's sexual orientation, they'd finally moved on to the subject of the lab.
'I don't get it. Why do you need to know so bad?'
'I just do,' said Stanley.
'Not good enough.'
Stanley hesitated. 'What if I were to tell you that I'm not a scientific miracle?'
'I'd say, no kidding.'
Stanley leaned forward, eyes wide with surprise. 'So you know?'
'Maybe we're talking about something else. I was referring to you being a miracle. It was kind of an insult.'
'Science had nothing to do with my return. It was witchcraft.'
'What an odd thing to say.'
'I mean it! Brant told me! I was brought back to life through rituals and virgin blood and shit like that!'
'And you believed him?'
'Yeah, I believed him!'
'That just seems like a concept you might want to take with a rather large grain of salt.'
'I know it sounds far-fetched, but I have to get in there to find out for sure. Veronica is going to try to get the badge for me. At least she said she'll see what she can do. That probably meant no. In fact, I'm sure it meant no. She'd have to be a complete idiot to go along with this. I shouldn't have asked. I suck.'
'Why be subtle about it?' Martin asked.
'What do you mean?'
'If you want the badge, take it. Beat the shit out of him. What's he going to do, shoot you?'
'I hadn't quite thought of that approach.'
'The question is this: could you handle the awkward situation of discovering that you were completely wrong?'
'I'd get over it eventually.'
'Then let's do it!'
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Stanley felt extremely nervous, which he blamed on the fact that he was planning to physically threaten the man who was responsible for his well-being. Lots of ways that could turn out bad. But he had to see what was in the lab, even if it just turned out to be a shelf filled with jars labeled 'Virgin Blood – Do Not Gargle.'
Martin was kicking his ass at the boxing video game, but of course Stanley had other things on his mind and (even more importantly) only one arm. Hell, you practically needed four arms to manipulate the kinds of controllers they had on video games these days, so Stanley was not embarrassed by his brutal trouncing.
They were the only ones in the bunker. Veronica and Dr. Arnzin had gone home for the weekend, and Brant had gone out to take care of 'extremely important matters' related to Stanley's 'abhorrent behavior' and 'irresponsible, reckless attitude' but that he hoped Stanley had an enjoyable time 'wasting his life' playing that 'crap.'
But Brant would be back. And Stanley and Martin would be ready for him.
Sort of.
Actually, they weren't really ready at all. Having a gun would've been a really great point in their favor, but they weren't allowed to leave the bunker. Well, Martin was, with the warning that if he left, he wouldn't be allowed to return until things calmed down. And they wouldn't have been able to smuggle a gun past the metal detectors anyway, so they sat in Stanley's room, playing video games, gunless.
He did have a bottle of hair spray that could be used as a bludgeoning weapon, and a video game system that could be used as a projectile, but they'd decided to rely on their own brute strength if Brant failed to cooperate. Though neither Stanley nor Martin were exactly fearsome physical threats, Brant wasn't particularly intimidating, either. If they couldn't overpower a fifty-year-old scientist with a rod up his butt, they didn't deserve to know what was in the lab.
'I'm getting that phantom itch again,' said Stanley, setting down his game controller and scratching the air where his arm used to be.
'What does it feel like?'
'It's weird. It feels like it's right in my middle finger, like my arm is bent upward and I'm flipping somebody off. What's disturbing about it is that I think maybe somebody has my arm and they're playing around with it and flipping off their buddies.'
'I hope you're wrong.'
'Me too.' Stanley scratched at the itch again. 'You don't really think Donald's death was my fault, do you?'
'No.'
