CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
"Evil draws men together." - Aristotle, Rhetoric - Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)
Leach was losing power. The leak was significant. Critical. It was difficult to move at all now. He knew he was close. Have to get Harry to the isolation vats, he thought. His sight was growing dimmer. Stop. Everything stopped. Frozen in his tracks, he tried to move again. This time his metal body cried out for attention. His circuits were burning, frying what was left of his brain. He was falling. He threw Harry in front of him as he fell helplessly to the ground. For all purposes, he was dead. Unable to get the fuel that would provide nourishment to his last human part—his brain, it would wither and die.
Harry rolled several feet away from the powerless and defenseless cyborg. The fall sent pain to his brain. That told Harry his body was still alive. Difficult to move though—could barely find the strength to crawl. He did crawl, though, but only two feet away from the cyborg before he, too, collapsed; Leach had carried him over a mile. Want to help him, but can't, he thought. Have to get to Makr. He looked up and saw the feet of four Blue Leaders in a diamond formation.
"Take me to your leader," he quipped, and everything went black.
.
Minutes later, the dynamic duo, Jackson and Winston, had made their way to earth and were taking the battle below now. They had run out of hovercrafts. One of the laser shots zapped them out of the sky
"Look at this heap of metal, will ya?" Winston exclaimed, looking at Leach's collapsed form. "Isn't that your worst nightmare? Hey! Look at these guys!"
He ran over to the four Blue Leaders frozen like giant statues on the battlefield. He spotted a three-foot-long cybert scrap and slammed it hard against the first cybert in the diamond formation. It teetered before falling back and taking the rest with it to lie motionless on the ground.
"Four cyberts at one time, Greg!" He shrugged and followed his partner, and bent down next to him, careful not to get too close to the machine Harry was attached to.
"Let's look after our own shall we, Winston. This guy must have put up quite a fight."
"He looks dead. Hey, I think I just saw him move."
"Almost dead. Not far from it. Help me pick him up and take him over there beside that building. In the shadow, of course."
"What's this blue-green goo?" asked Winston.
"I don't know."
"It looks like... No couldn't be."
"What? What do you think it is?"
"It's impossible."
"We just did the impossible. Tell me what you think it is, Winston."
"All right. All right. This is like the gel that is used in isolation cells."
"I've heard of them—a sort of brainwashing system."
"More of a cooker actually. The gel contains Bio DNA in a substance that nourishes it, keeps it alive indefinitely."
"Okay, so?"
"Well, at first, it draws all your memories out, makes a blank slate of the brain before predetermined memories are put back in. Doesn't hurt the vital functions that keep the body alive. The result: born-agains."
"I don't get it. This guy was in one of those cells and escaped."
"That's what it looks like, but I don't know how. I suppose..."
"Out with it! Hurry! This guy doesn't have much time."
"Well, to put it simply: the gel temporarily paralyzes the body as it absorbs the properties needed to prepare it for its new mind to work in conjunction with it. Every Bio cell has DNA, and every cell has a genetic memory. One reason complete brain swaps don't work is that the brain needs the DNA behavior linkages. Those linkages are formed over time. Scientifically, we can clone just about anything biological, but we can't create a mind. A brain, yes, but a mind, no. That's why Makr tries to create memories; that's why he needs us to explain the inexplicable things we do. He's hoping we'll develop the linkages to the memories he wants us to have. There could have been an improvement made to the gel that eliminates the need for the paralysis."
"That's putting it simply?"
Winston shrugged. "I'm not going to touch it."
"Well, I'm already touching it and nothing is happening to me. Besides, you already touched it when you helped me carry him over here. Is anything happening to you because of that?"
"I guess not. My hands were hurting all day, laser burned and scraped raw, but now they look and feel fine. Hey, you don't think...?"
"I don't know if this is the same stuff, but Carlos once scrounged some barrel containers of a gel just like this one, but he used it as a soothing bath, a healing bath. It works on minor wounds, cuts, bruises, scrapes, you know what I mean. Nothing major—except I stole a look in a lab once; it was a Bio cloning lab. Had all these bodies and body parts suspended in a similar gel. Now that I think about it, the gel was actually more a golden color. You don't suppose they could be the same stuff, do you?"
"Could be a new and improved variety. Or have a different purpose. Who knows? If it isn't connected to Makr it might have the same healing properties. This guy needs something."
"From what I've seen of the healing gel, this guy is too far gone to benefit from it. Look how pale he is."
"But if the gel is new... Well, it's probably a moot point considering we don't know where any gel of any kind is located around here."
Greg didn't appear to be paying attention. He was thinking.
"If he escaped," Greg asked. "Why was he crawling toward this building instead of away from it?"
"A Shadow?"
"I don't think so."
"To meet Makr." Nothing had been said out loud.
"That's more like it," Greg agreed.
"What?"
"To meet his Makr." Harry spoke through the gel.
"I didn't say anything."
Greg looked at Winston. They had been through a lot together. Why was he picking this time to be difficult? "You don't think he wants to kill himself because of all the pain he is in?"
"Don't look at me like that." Winston answered. "I swear I didn't say a thing."
Both looked at each other, then looked around for their laser axes.
"Makr, shit!" they both exclaimed at once.
Not Makr though. Harry.
"Who said that?"
Too tired to talk. Using the gel. Talking through it.
Winston took his hand out of the gel and shook the excess that was clinging to it, but it wouldn't come off.
"Please. I can still communicate with you. I just don't know your hearts," Harry's mind 'spoke' again.
"Put your hand back, Winston," Greg insisted. "This is too crazy not to be real."
Winston shook his head. "Who are you kidding? I know what that stuff's used for. No way!
"Put it back. I want him to know who we are."
"Thank you. That's much better. You're a Shadow, Greg? And you're not- right, Winston?"
"He is now. Honorary. He's earned the right. How do you know our names?"
"From your memories. You might be surprised to know we have mutual friends. You, Greg, are very close to my brother, Carlos."
"You know Carlos? Have you seen him? Is he alive?"
"I hope so. I had to leave him in the middle of a fight. I think you were there, too, using a very large hovercar to give us air support. Closest thing to a fighter jet. More like a bomber that one, I guess."
"What are those?" asked Greg.
"Nothing but a piece of the past that I'd like to stay that way. What happened to your first hovercar? I'm a little unclear about that. From your memories of the event, I can tell you're a little vague, too."
"The details are a bit fuzzy," said Greg. "Well...we were in the process of trying to destroy the factories around Makr square, but we had company. Birds. Cyber birds with lasers. Never seen anything like it. We popped the canopy and tossed out the explosives, which also knocked us unconscious. Seems this hovercar had an eject mechanism that worked when the canopy was jettisoned. There was only one parachute, but
it let us down easy enough. When we landed, we found another hovercar which we borrowed after convincing the Bio inside it we needed it more than he did."
"You didn't mind abandoning your prize later?"
"Had to," volunteered Winston. "The Cyber were adapting to the air attacks. It was getting too dangerous up there."
"What you accomplished was very brave, and necessary. You have both been very heroic for the Bio cause. You have hurt Makr. Made him search for me even harder."
"Is there anything we can do for you now? You look very pale."
"Yes, I'm weakening. This gel is holding me up, so to speak, but it will lose its energy in a short while. Need more gel. Makr, help them! Help me!"
There were no more thoughts emanating from the gel and Harry.
"Greg, let's try the Isolation Cells. If it doesn't work, he's already dead anyway."
"Maybe you're right. I don't understand it though. He tells us we're heroic and then asks for Makr to help him."
"What have we got to lose, Greg? Way I figure it, we should have been killed with our fight in the clouds. The rest is gravy."
"One time you save my life and I have to pay with the rest of mine."
"You saved my skin, too, you know, more than once. I just think it's the right thing to do. If you don't want to help, I'll do it alone."
"You would, too. Well, I'm not letting you get all the glory. Let's go. Hurry up."
Winston smiled at his friend. Shadows.
All bluster on the outside with plenty of courage on the inside.