Chapter 16
Gabriel drove from Melissa Martin’s home on Blackstone Drive to his house on the outskirts of town. A sentiment that could only be described as dread pervaded his every thought with each moment that passed. He did not bother returning Dr. Terzini’s calls. The severity of the situation required that they be face to face.
Turning in to his driveway, his stomach clenched and coiled. Worry twisted about within him.
Pulling down the long, gravel pathway, the sprawling Victorian came into sight. The soft glow of light coming from the downstairs windows meant that Dr. Franklin Terzini awaited his arrival.
Parking in one of the three garage ports, Gabriel climbed out of his hunter-green Ford Explorer and entered through a door leading to the laundry room. From the laundry room, a staircase led to a hallway that entered into the formal living room.
As Gabriel climbed the staircase, footsteps were heard overhead. He could hear the rhythmic clacking of heeled men’s dress shoes and the purposefulness with which each stride struck the hardwood floors. His maker was pacing.
Pacing was an uncharacteristic behavior for Dr. Terzini. It suggested agitation, emotion. His maker was an unusually detached man, indifferent to everything. Terzini’s mood was nearly impossible for Gabriel to gauge as it rarely changed. Gabriel did know, however, that sneaking out was an outrageous offense. Disregarding Terzini’s attempts to contact him would not be well received. The pacing meant only one thing: he would see his maker’s anger.
Taking a deep breath to steel himself against what lay beyond the door, Gabriel turned the doorknob.
He immediately saw Dr. Terzini walking across the width of the oversized formal living room. Upon hearing Gabriel enter, he stopped and turned to face him.
To Gabriel’s surprise, his face showed no trace of agitation whatsoever. Instead, it was eerily calm, serene.
“You left tonight despite my instructions, Gabriel,” Terzini offered levelly.
“Yes sir,” Gabriel admitted.
Gabriel noticed how Terzini’s face hardened almost imperceptibly at his admission.
“And why, pray tell, would you do this?” Terzini asked.
Gabriel felt his pulse quicken, though not together with pleasant sensations as it did when Melissa was present. His stomach contracted violently and his palms were slick with perspiration. His mouth went dry.
Gabriel swallowed hard before replying, “I thought it crucial to our mission, sir.”
Terzini paused briefly, his frame of mind indecipherable. Unsure of what to expect from his creator, Gabriel waited.
Then without warning, Terzini laughed, a bitter, cutting laugh.
His odd laughter reverberated not with happiness or humor but with contempt, a stark contrast to his calm exterior.
“Yes, we discussed that,” he affirmed, abruptly ending his outburst. “And I expressly forbade you from going.”
“Sir, but -”
“No Gabriel,” Terzini interrupted. “I will not allow this type of insubordination.”
Terzini’s gaze met Gabriel’s. With tiny eyes as sooty as coal, his intense watchfulness pierced Gabriel as effortlessly as a scalpel passing through flesh.
Gabriel disrupted Terzini’s intimidating stare with more bad news.
“Dr. Terzini, sir. I am here to bring you to the police station,” he began, anxiously awaiting a retort. When none was offered, he continued, “There was a situation at the bonfire. A girl was being attacked and I fought off her assailant. The police were called by the girl’s father.”
Gabriel paused and tried to estimate Dr. Terzini’s response. His maker’s expression remained unreadable. He reluctantly added, “They were told of my skirmish with the attacker. They need me to give a statement. The officers told me I needed a parent with me.”
Dr. Terzini’s face remained impassive, but Gabriel sensed hostility beneath his calm appearance.
“You have compromised our entire objective,” he hissed between clenched teeth.
Terzini approached Gabriel, his demeanor suddenly threatening. Though small in stature, his creator had tremendous presence. He imperiled with brainpower, not brawn. Gabriel instinctively sought to move away from his maker but found his legs leaden, unresponsive to what his mind commanded them to do. Instead, he froze in place.
Dr. Franklin Terzini advanced. He stepped closely and raised a clenched hand high in the air. Gabriel flinched, expecting an assault, as his maker brought his fist down and pounded it against the coffee table between them in an act of controlled aggression.
Unnerved, Gabriel remained fixed in place as Terzini spat, “Why, Gabriel? Why? After everything I have done for you! I created you! Why would you destroy my work, my vision of the future, by intervening in a situation that did not concern you?”
Gabriel stood, his body rigid, as his maker’s words accused, condemned. After all, it was against his code of conduct, a cipher so deeply engrained in his construct that it was woven into the fabric of his existence, to oppose Terzini.
Instead he stood, feet planted as his maker’s attitude transformed again. His demeanor morphed from carefully measured to enraged and back again. He had returned to his unflappable manner and cast his stony stare on Gabriel again.
“You have risked exposing yourself to the world and now you have put me at risk as well. The police will see me. Someone may recognize me.” Terzini said frostily. “This is an infraction I cannot forgive. You have single-handedly upended our objective. It appears as though you need to be destroyed,” he offered as a final matter-of-fact thought.
“Sir, I was doing as you have instructed me to do,” Gabriel countered. “I was trying to behave as any other human would.”
“You were not created to behave as other humans do, Gabriel. You are to follow my orders,” Terzini said emphatically.
“Sir, it has been my understanding that I am to act as other humans do. Human beings are motivated by their feelings, right?”
“Of course they are,” Terzini answered flatly.
“Well sir, the screams of a girl would generate an emotional response,” Gabriel began. “That is the case in most Hollywood films you have ever shown me. And in the ones that featured a person – usually a female – in distress, that person was rescued.”
Terzini paused and began to listen intently. Gabriel sensed his maker’s desire to hear a plausible excuse. He knew Terzini to be a vain man therefore Gabriel’s missteps would represent his own. Failure of any kind was unfathomable to the geneticist. Terzini’s narcissism gave Gabriel more time to explain, to persuade.
“Go on, go on,” Terzini urged.
Gabriel approached his manipulation of Terzini with extreme caution. He kept his face expressionless and his intonation flat and emotionless. It was imperative for him to present a lucid, rational explanation for his earlier actions.
“Wouldn’t it have drawn attention to me, and to us, had I ignored the situation and not helped a girl who was being attacked?” he asked then added, “And she saw me, too. That would not have been in keeping with the behavioral patterns of feeling human beings. Furthermore, I know that I disobeyed your direct orders by attending the school function. My objective was sound. My intent was to further submerge myself into the student populace, to blend seamlessly. I told many of my fellow students that I was going. Not attending would have made me seem odd on my first day. I am supposed to blend unnoticed,” he reasoned. “I went, as most other students did, and I responded in a crisis much like any of them would have, sir.”
Terzini did not respond immediately, but allowed Gabriel’s counterpoint to linger in the air. He stood eerily still, his face expressionless, inscrutable. His maker’s gaze did not waver. It remained on Gabriel. He was forced to wait uncomfortably as Terzini deliberated internally.
When finally ready to speak, Terzini was firm and businesslike.
“Let us go to the police station before the officers become suspicious of our where
abouts. Go to the study and secure our identification information from the desk drawer. Remember, at the police station, I am your father. You must refer to me as ‘dad’ not ‘doctor’. I am Mr. James.”
“Yes sir.”
“And as for the situation this evening, you will not associate with anyone in any type of extracurricular capacity, ever. Is that understood, Gabriel?”
Gabriel knew that such infractions would not be tolerated; that he had received a singular pardon. Though his creator was arrogant to a fault, he dared not underestimate him a second time.
“Yes sir.”
“This must never happen again. If something like this happens again, I will destroy you,” he warned callously before releasing Gabriel from his arresting watch.
Gabriel’s mind spun out of control as he turned from Terzini and walked to the study. He knew he would have to figure out a way to see Melissa aside from at school.