Chapter 15
I found a flat in London, and spent Christmas with my father, as planned. I thought it best to miss Bruce’s funeral, though I was invited. I didn’t want to make his daughter uncomfortable.
I was back in Birmingham, packing for the move to London. I felt somehow differently about my items since Bruce's death. My clutter box was, now, merely clutter to me. The collection of old shoes seemed like scrap; even Mr Brownstone‘s old shoe.
Maybe it was part of a new perspective, a new appraisal on what’s really important in life, but it didn’t come as a surprise. I’d stopped caring about people shoes. Stopped all my ‘childish strangeness’, as my father used to call it. I was entering a new stage of my life, and this was the new and improved me.
I phoned Haggis about my new position and he said that both he and Tethra Collins were proud of me. I planned to go to the Birmingham facility to have my last goodbyes and collect any of my remaining items.
I made my way to the front gate worrying that they wouldn’t let me in. This turned not to be a problem, they let me through and told me I had to see my telepath first, as I’d been off site. I didn’t have any concern over this; it would be the last time I’d have to submit to their scans. Adrian Ward wants to flex his muscle before I’m free of this place. I wondered if he planned to blame me for my parents, again.
I was ushered through the waiting room, without a moments, delay and found myself in the familiar surroundings of the telepath booth.
I sat in silence for over a minute, staring at my reflection in the glass. There was a click from the speaker but no voice. I said, “Hello?”
A brief flash of heat hit my face and stopped. Ward would have been doing as required to comply with the rules, but that secret was known to me.
I waited some more time in darkness when the door swung open. Two guards reached in and dragged me away. I found myself dragged to the back office. The guards were armed and tough. They didn’t let my arms loose for a moment.
Adrian Ward walked into the room carrying a file. He tells the guards to let go and he indicated for me to sit.
“I think we’re going to have to run some tests on you?” he says.
“What do you want?” I ask, “What tests? Is this some attempt to intimidate me?”
He shook his head and asked, “What do you know about the Bruce incident?”
I froze, wondering what he meant. “It was a suicide, I was there, he was very distraught.”
He stared at me, “You saw the scene of his death?”
I nodded.
“What makes you so sure that it was his entrails that lay near his body?”
I shook my head, “You’re saying they were switched?”
A self satisfied smile stretched across Ward’s face as he said, “Dr Thorn did go to a lot of trouble to cancel the autopsy. I’m not calling her a murderer, but it’s well known Bruce was a key component to her work.”
That’s it, I thought, he wants to use me to get to her. “Do you have any reason to believe any of this,” I snapped, “Or are you just trying to dig up dirt on her?”
He sat there, looking unimpressed.
“Let me go,” I demanded.
He shook his head and said, “I’m fully authorised to hold on to you as long as I see fit. You’re a security risk. You were caught tampering with our computers, remember, and now you’re showing unusual scan results.”
“Let me see Collins,” I said, cooling down. He walked away, leaving me there with the guards. I must have been waiting fifteen minutes before he returned with Haggis.
Haggis turned to Ward and asked if he could speak to me alone. Ward nodded and indicated to the guards to follow him out of the room.
Haggis also entered the short story competition for the Halloween edition of the company’s newsletter.
He wrote about a lonely man who lived in a lighthouse. One day he built a robot dog to be his friend.
He loved that dog and the dog loved him back. They whiled away their time together, walking over sand and rocky ground, looking out to sea from the top of the lighthouse, playing scrabble and ludo.
The dog had a computer for a brain and had to be handicapped in order to give the man any chance of winning scrabble. He was fed batteries which he would drain, then regurgitate them, flat.
The dog was called David and, in less than a year, he began to corrode. The salty sea air wasn’t good for him. His joints were affected first, becoming discoloured and rigid. He stumbled over the rocks during their walks together. Every day he seemed to lag further and further behind. One day, he disappeared.
The man searched and searched for days; calling out his name. He walked all around the island - further than they’d ever walked together. There weren’t many places to hide. The days turned into weeks and the man returned to his loneliness, satisfied he’d never meet his faithful friend again.
One Halloween, when returning to the mainland to scare kids with some exploding sweets he’d invented, he saw a dog by a bench overlooking the harbour. It was larger than David and real - covered in black fur, and certain to be useless at scrabble. Regardless, the man felt drawn to it. He found himself sitting on the bench eyeing the dog out of the corner of his eye. The dog looked back enthusiastically.
The dog wasn’t a stray. If it had been, the man wouldn’t have hesitated. Its lead was tied to the bench. The owner would be around somewhere. Possibly in a shop. The dog looked up, wide eyed.
I’ll do it, the man thought, as he glanced around. Hurriedly, he fumbled with the lead. His hands were cold and his fingers felt awkward, but he managed to untie it. Then he briskly walked off, lead in hand. The dog following behind without resistance.
He’d never done anything like this. His heart didn't stop racing until he was safely back in the lighthouse.
“Now, you don’t eat batteries do you?” joked the man, “I’ll go look in the kitchen and see what I have for you.”
The dog just sat there, eyes open, waiting.
The man scooped up some ham, from the fridge, and took it to the dog. The dog welcomed it and wagged his tail as he chomped it up on the floor.
David had never wagged his tail. He was physically able, but he was never coded to give such a reaction to a treat. The man thought of how he’d like to refine David, adding that little feature. If only David was still around.
“We’ll need a name for you,” he said, kneeling down, “What would you like to be called? David?”
Yes, he would inherit his old dogs name. But what dirty paws he has. He’d left a trail of dirt across the carpeted floor. David used to walk on non stick, almost self cleaning, alloy, paws. This was something the man could do for this dog.
He fashioned some new paws out of a metal alloy. These were strong sturdy and would stay clean with minimal effort. There was some sedatives in the first aid box. He climbed up to the top shelf reaching for it. Yes, there was everything he needed here. Sedating the dog, he went to work attaching the new paws.
Oh, he’s going to be so grateful, he thought as he chopped the end of the dogs limbs off.
The dog awoke not noticing anything different, at first. Then, trying to walk, he slipped. His leg spread in every direction and his face looked up with a startled expression. Something had changed. He noticed his paws were shiny and metal.
He bit at them. Chewing the edges in an attempt to free his paws from the metal that seemed to cover them. It was no use. He whined and looked up and the man. The man smiled down.
“It’s an improvement, boy. You’ll get used to them.”
Days went by and the dog did get used to his new paws. They tip taped over the floor. Quietly over carpeted areas but with a pleasant knocking against the wooden floorboards - just like his old dog.
The paws weren’t perfect. He’d struggled to walk over the rocky terrain outside the lighthouse. His little legs were unable to compensate fully for the weight of his new paws. Getting home, the man sat him down and
shook his head.
“I’ve not done a thorough enough job,” he said.
He went to fetch his first aid box. The dog let out a little whine on seeing the red box again. The man sedated the dog. This time, new legs.
The dog woke, initially with some discomfort but, after a day, his new legs became second nature. He could hop and skip over rocks and surfaces more easily than ever. His new legs had to be charged every night. Plugged into a wall socket. It wasn’t as elegant as eating batteries, like the original David. The man pondered over this as he watched the dog sleep in his basket.
“Why, not?” he said to himself, standing up.
The next time the dog woke he had a new mouth. A metal mouth. He couldn’t bark properly, a slurping sound was the best he could do, but he could drain batteries for himself. He looked up with confusion and worry in his eyes. The dog never slept in his basket after that.
When forced, through exhaustion, to sleep, he’d hide beneath the stairs under a pile of clutter. The dog was terrified.
This wasn’t all lost on the man. He’d messed up - gone too far. The dog looked so pitiful. Besides, the man missed having someone to play scrabble with.
The final surgery removed the last remaining organic parts. Now a metal dog sat by the man’s side, at the top of the lighthouse, playing scrabble.
“I could never beat you, boy,” he said with a smile. The dog wagged its tail as the man admitted defeat.
Haggis never won the Halloween short story competition. If he had, I can’t imagine Collins would have been pleased. Though, I’m sure she would have congratulated him and put on a show.
I sat, staring up a Haggis.
“What have you got yourself into?” he asked me. I insisted that I’d done nothing wrong and did my best to explain the situation. I told him of the personal conflict between Adrian Ward and Dr Thorn. Haggis just listened patiently.
He said, “It’ll be alright, we’re going to get it all sorted out.”
I looked at the phone on the desk and said, “I want to make a phone call.”
He shook his head and said, “Thats not possible.” He gave me a concerned look and left.
Alone in the room, I picked up the phone. It had been disconnected. Slouching back in the chair, I waited. I could hear voices outside the door.
After a minute the phone began to ring. I quickly snatched the phone from the desk and said, “Hello.”
“Ernum, I'm glad I got through to you.”
The voice on the other end was distorted, like a telepath in a telepath booth.
“Who is this?”
“This is Bruce, Ernum.”
A telepaths idea of a mind game, I thought.
I said, “Bruce is dead.” I felt like slamming the receiver down, but something stopped me.
“That's what I thought, Ernum,” came the response.
“I saw his body,” I said, wondering, for a brief moment, about what I had actually seen.
“I have a new body, Ernum.”
“You're full of shit.” I said, still unable to bring the phone down, “Who is this?”
“I have a new body courtesy of Granny Labs Bio technology centre. I don't know how to tell you this, but it turns out I was the intestine all along. My brain was defective and incapable of all but the most rudimentary of thought, so I took over. I'm one of them. Are you surprised?”
What surprised me was my willingness to entertain the possibility.
The voice continued, “I was surprised. I see now that intestines aren't fundamentally bad. They just grow that way; singing songs of lies and mistrust, without understanding. I can make them sing a better song. I can end the corruption.”
I didn't believe any of it. But it was somebody on the phone and I felt compelled to listen.
The voice turned to a whisper, “You’re in danger, Ernum. Don't trust Haggis. He's being coerced. You notice how shaky he is? How nervous? He’s not going to let you go.”
Finally, I slammed put the phone down. He was right, whoever he was, Haggis was shaky. Maybe Ward stole the Bruce’s intestine. What if he murdered him?
I had to escape.