“Victor, look who’s here,” Marsha said, gesturing toward Mary.
“We’ve already met,” Victor said, nodding at Mary.
VJ was standing in the doorway with a grin on his face.
“Not every kid has three legitimate biological parents,”
Victor said, attempting to ease the tension. He glanced at his watch: only six minutes to go.
“Mary has told me some interesting things about the new lab,” Marsha said with subtle sarcasm that only Victor could appreciate.
“Wonderful,” said Victor. “That’s wonderful. But, Marsha, it’s your turn to leave. You have dozens of patients who are desperate for your attention. Jean is frantic. She’s called me three times. Now that I’ve handled my pressing problems, it’s your turn to go.”
Marsha eyed VJ, then looked at Victor. “I thought that you were going to take care of things,” she said with irritation.
“Valerie Maddox can handle any emergencies. I think it’s more important for you to do what you have to do.”
Victor had to get her out of there. Why wouldn’t she just leave? Did she really not trust him? Did she really think he was just going to let this go on? Sadly, Victor realized that for the past few years he hadn’t given her much reason to expect better from him. Yet a solution was coming, and it was only a few frightening moments away.
“Marsha, I want you to go do your hospital rounds. Now!”
But Marsha wouldn’t budge.
“I think she likes it here!” VJ joked. Then one of the security men called him from the main part of the lab and he left.
Half-crazed with mounting anxiety, Victor leaned over to Marsha and, forgetting Mary, hissed: “You have to get out of here this instant. Trust me.”
Marsha looked in his eyes. Victor nodded. “Please!” he moaned. “Get out of here!”
“Is something going to happen?” Marsha asked him.
“Yes, for chrissake!” Victor forcibly whispered.
“What’s going to happen?” Mary said nervously, looking back and forth between the Franks.
“What about you?” Marsha questioned, ignoring Mary.
“Don’t worry about me,” Victor snapped.
“You’re not going to do something foolish?” Marsha asked.
Victor snapped his hands over his eyes. The tension was becoming unbearable. His watch said less than three minutes.
VJ reappeared at the doorway. “Jorge is not upstairs,” he said to Victor.
Mary turned to VJ. “Something is going to happen!” she cried.
“What?” VJ demanded.
“He’s doing something,” Mary said anxiously. “He’s got something planned.”
Victor looked at his watch: two minutes.
VJ called over his shoulder for Security, then grabbed Victor’s arm. Shaking him, he demanded, “What have you done?”
Victor lost control. The tension was too much and fear overflowed into emotion, bringing a sudden gush of tears. For a moment he couldn’t talk. He knew that he had utterly failed. He’d not been up to the challenge.
“What have you done?” VJ repeated as he shouted into Victor’s face, shaking him again. Victor did not resist.
“We all have to get out of the lab,” Victor managed through his tears.
“Why?” VJ questioned.
“Because the sluice is going to open,” Victor wailed.
There was a pause as VJ’s mind processed this sudden information.
“When?” VJ demanded, shaking his father again.
Victor looked at his watch. There was less than a minute.
“Now!” he said.
VJ’s eyes blazed at his father. “I counted on you,” he said with burning hatred. “I thought you were a true scientist. Well, now you are history.”
Victor leaped up, knocking VJ to the side, where he tripped on the leg of a chair. Victor grabbed Marsha’s wrist and yanked her to her feet. He ran her through the living quarters and out into the main lab.
VJ had regained his feet instantly and followed his parents, screaming for the security men to stop them.
From their bench it was easy for the two security men to catch Victor, grabbing him by both arms. Victor managed to give Marsha a push up the stairs. She ran part way up, then turned back to the room.
“Go!” Victor shouted at her. Then, to the two guards he urgently said, “This whole lab is about to disintegrate in seconds. Trust me.”
Looking at Victor’s face, the guards believed him. They let go of him and fled up the stairs, passing Marsha.
“Wait!” VJ cried from the middle of the lab floor. But the stampede had started. Even Mary brushed by him in her haste to get to the stairs.
Marsha got out, with Mary following on her heels.
VJ’s eyes blazed at his father. “I counted on you,” he raged. “I trusted you. I thought you were a man of science. I wanted to be like you. Guards!” he shouted. “Guards!” But the guards had fled along with the women.
VJ whirled around, looking at the main lab. Then he looked over at the gestational room.
Just then, the muffled roar of an explosion rocked the entire basement. A sound like thunder began to build and vibrate the room. VJ sensed what was coming and started to run for the stairs, but Victor reached out and grabbed him.
“What are you doing?” VJ cried. “Let me go. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“No,” Victor said over the din. “No, we don’t.”
VJ struggled, but Victor’s hold was firm. Wryly, he realized for all his son’s vast mental powers, he still had the body—and strength—of a ten-year-old.
VJ squirmed and tried to kick, but Victor hooked his free hand behind VJ’s knees and swept the boy off his feet.
“Help!” VJ cried. “Security!” he cried, but his voice was lost in a low rumbling noise that steadily increased, rattling the laboratory glassware. It was like the beginnings of an earthquake.
Victor stepped over to the crude door covering the opening of the sluice tunnel. He stopped five feet from it. He looked down into his son’s unblinking ice-blue eyes which stared back defiantly.
“I’m sorry, VJ.” But the apology was not for what he was doing that minute. For that he was not sorry. But Victor felt he owned his son an apology for the experiment he’d carried out in a lab a little over ten years ago. The experiment that had yielded his brilliant but conscienceless son. “Good-bye, Isaac.”
At that moment, one hundred tons of incompressible water burst through the sluice opening. The old paddle wheel in the center of the room turned madly, cranking the old rusted gears and rods for the first time in years and, for a brief moment, the giant clock in the top of the tower chimed haphazardly. But the undirected and uncontrolled water quickly pulverized everything in its path, undermining even the granite foundation blocks within minutes. Several of the larger blocks shifted, and the beams supporting the first floor began to fall through to the basement. Ten minutes after the explosion, the clock tower itself began to wobble and then, seemingly in slow motion, it crumbled. In the end, all that was left of the building and secret basement lab was a soggy mass of rubble.
Epilogue
