Beast Machine Read online

  Jeffrey gulped nervously,” Thank… Thank you, sir! It is an honor to work under you and learn from you.” Jeffrey’s face turned rosy all over and his pants, once again, started to tighten. He used his sleight of hand to put his member up into his waistband before Chairman Obelis noticed.

  “Come here, my boy. Give me a gentlemanly hug!”

  The pair embraced happily for several seconds, several amazing seconds for Jeffrey. Both were entirely exhausted from the planning of this grand ordeal and the campaigning for Governor of Arkansas the past few weeks; it was mostly filling out forms, sending out press releases, finding emails and addresses to bombard with political junk mail and setting up times for future debates – when Chairman Obelis would actually be found in the flesh.

  Jeffrey suggested they both retire to the lounge and sip on champagne, or that they relax in the spa. He even offered to give Chairman Obelis a deep tissue massage after sitting in the sauna.

  “No, my boy, I must make sure Silva doesn’t derail first. I must write more script into the program for Chelsey, the nifty voice you created from old audio tapes, to convince him to keep going when he gets down on himself. He’s a frail man and we have to cradle him until he’s ready to truly take on the cause.”

  Defeated, Jeffrey whined, “Okay, sir. I am going to sleep for a few hours then I will be continuing our – your work in the morning.”

  “Thanks-a-million, Jeffrey.”

  Jeffrey slumped out of the room and went to bed with the image of that amazing embrace stuck in his head. He smiled wistfully.

  Ring-a-ding-ding

  Ring-a-ding-ding

  Ring-a-ding-ding

  “Go with Thane, my love. He will not harm you; he and Chairman Obelis have the same goals as you – to help humanity,” Chelsey gently commanded Silva. “Go with him, it is your first step toward greatness.”

  “Yes, yes, my dear,” returned Silva. “Will I get to hear your voice ever again, Chelsey?”

  “Of course, my love; I will talk to you once you arrive at the facility.”

  Thane opened the door after realizing he had to open the door from the outside, not Silva from the inside. “Doctor Takeo Silva, you are to come with me,” said Thane flatly but loudly.

  “Yes! Thane, I am ready to go with you!” cheered Silva as he skipped out the door with nothing in hand.

  Thane looked grimly at the little man skipping to the car. Thane looked down the hall and noticed the small reptilian figure broken into pieces on the ground with pieces of wood sprayed all over. He shrugged and walked out of the house.

  The pair loaded up into the vehicle and began the journey to the renovated mining facility.

  Chairman Obelis peered around the room to make sure that Jeffrey had left. Once assured that Jeffrey had left, Chairman Obelis made his way back to the video monitors.

  He flipped on the only screen that had been left black.

  On the screen was the worn face of Senator Joseph McCarthy at a desk with a look of glee on his face. It appeared Jeffrey and Silva successfully revived the senator without damaging the senator’s original appearance. McCarthy was already an ugly sort all on his own.

  The room had been filled with items of McCarthy’s time – a black and white television, multicolored gelatin molds with fruit and a poster of a pinup girl. It appeared McCarthy had roughly chiseled the words “FEAR THE RED SCARE” several times on the wall behind him. He appeared beyond content to be alive again and in that particular room of nostalgia.

  “When can we set up a meeting, Senator?” Chairman Obelis asked McCarthy.

  Chapter 13

  Bullshit

  Gora awoke in the arms of a sleeping Hitbear. Hitbear was sitting with his back against a table as he held Gora. She immediately knew she had made a mistake about revealing the truth as to why she so desperately wanted to end Takeo Silva’s life. She needed revenge on all the doctors, scientists and inventors that spiraled her career out of control, not just Silva.

  But in her mistake she had found comfort in her two beasts, her two children. These two historical figures from opposite ends of the moral spectrum had learned to love her for being her – Owlbert and Hitbear wanted to complete this task as much as Gora did. It was a warm feeling, close to the feeling of being able to create those full-grown trees. Still, would she let this love for her beasts stand in the way of getting revenge at any cost?

  “Owlbert, where are you?” yawned Gora as she gently removed Hitbear’s stub arm from around her. “I need to fix that soon.”

  “I am in zee Beast Machine room. Vell, this laboratory ist ein open room, so, uh… I am verking on ein Harriet Tubman beast!” screeched Owlbert from the other side of the dingy laboratory. The volume of Owlbert’s voice was always the same, regardless of how close or distant you were from him, but the inflection of his voice changed depending on his mood. In his current exuberant mood, Owlbert’s voice was cutesy.

  Gora slowly made her way to the Beast Machine, but gathered a few pillows and blankets to cover Hitbear with as she passed by the slumbering bear.

  “How much time is left on her arrival?” asked Gora. She yawned again; this caused her whole body to shake.

  “It appears to be merely minutes!” cheeped Owlbert happily. He clicked his beak.

  Click-click, click, click-click.

  Taken aback, Gora asked, “How long have you been working on this?!” She walked over to the control panel. Everything seemed to be in order. The data screen was lacking certain aspects to the modern world, but it didn’t seem to be anything major as Gora moved on to check the cooling station.

  The vials of static animals, now only five remaining, were properly placed in the cooling station and the purple liquid was safely placed back in its locked cabinet. Gora didn’t even realize that Owlbert had to have unlocked the cooling station and cabinet to retrieve the ingredients for the Beast Machine.

  Owlbert clicked his talons a few times before stating, “At least zehn hours, Gora! Ist bin greeeat fun! I tinkered with your equations to speed up zee process. It has bin so long since I’ve done experiment!” A smile stretched across the bird’s face. His feather mustache jostled up and down.

  “What about Harriet’s picture? Where did you know where to look for?” Gora put her hair up in her typical messy bun. It was so messy that it looked like she put ample time into the process to make it so messy. Her right cheek was red from lying on it for the past ten hours.

  “Ist not that hard to find, honestly. Du keep, um, very clean lab, Frau Gora. Many scientists lack zee cleaning function in their brain, myself included. I always made mess, even using just chalk und maths.”

  Gora slowly spun around, looking at her lab. There were broken glass beakers and vials in a corner, the ceiling was discolored from years of experiments, ripped paper of various quality strewn throughout the lab, cockroaches that had become domesticated roamed without fear and the floor resembled that of a pizza parlor after six consecutive weeks of birthday parties. It was a mess.

  Gora, however, didn’t pay any mind to where Owlbert got a legitimate photograph of Harriet Tubman. She was just happy about the small compliment he gave her.

  “Thank you, Owlbert.” She smiled and patted him gently on the back. He stretched his wings and yawned.

  “I must get back to mein perch und rest! Ist no good if I am tired! Sleep ist zee most important resource vee humans, er, part-humans have!” He nodded at Gora and made his way to Hitbear and nuzzled up close to the brown bear. The cuddling beasts made Gora’s heart warm.

  In the final minutes before Tubman’s arrival, Gora brushed dust and random filth from her hair and sleep from her eyes. Despite her ruffled clothes from sleeping in them, Gora appeared ready to welcome her third creation into the world, into her world. Gora even wore a smile, albeit a strained smile.

  The timer on the Beast Machine went off. Gora braced herself for Tubman to appear from the Beast Machine and be ready to help.

  The machi
ne shook violently and the door flung open. Out bounced a hare that went straight for Gora. Gora took this as a sign of warmness, a sign of happiness from Tubman for being revived again, yet it was a sign of discontent.

  “Welco-,“ stated Gora as she was kicked in the mouth by the hare. The hare bounced off Gora’s head in the process. Blood dripped out of Gora’s mouth, down onto her shirt.

  “Stop! It’s okay!” Gora shouted as she grabbed at her mouth. “I’m your friend; we are your friends!”

  Gora outstretched her other arm toward the hare, presumably Tubman. Tubman was standing atop the control panel for the Beast Machine. Luckily, the creation process needed a cooling down period before any other beast could be made, so any buttons Tubman accidently pushed did nothing.

  Tubman the hare bounced, hopped and skipped throughout the lab knocking down vials, books and leftover snacks. The disgusting lab was somehow becoming messier and the cockroaches were scared into hiding by the loud noises Tubman was making.

  “What is this place? What am I?” questioned Tubman loudly as she continued her confused destruction of the lab. “I died! I know I passed! What is this mess!? Take me back to the Promised Land! This ain’t right!”

  “Please, Tubman, please stay calm. There is nothing to fear here, we are your friends. I am your…your creator!” said Gora as she slowly walked towards Tubman. Gora tried to apprehend the hare, but was too slow. Tubman bounced away.

  “My creator? You are not God. You are not my creator!” Tubman jumped atop a bookshelf out of Gora’s grasp. Gora spit out blood that had been accumulating in her mouth.

  “You are…you are not your original self, but rather a new Harriet Tubman. It would be easier to explain to you if you just came down from there! Please, I will not harm you.”

  “There’s no way I am coming down there to you. I will not be an experiment!”

  Gora and Tubman shouted at each other for several more minutes. Neither had noticed the rather large brown bear inching towards the bookshelf Tubman sat upon. Hitbear broke the bookshelf in half with one strike of his paw. CRAACK! Tubman began to tumble down towards Gora, both were screaming frantically.

  Gora missed Tubman and Tubman landed roughly on her head. THUD.

  “Hitbear! What the fuck! I was handling the situation! God damn it,” yelled Gora furiously. “Now she’s hurt and I said I wouldn’t harm her!”

  “She’s fine,” growled Hitbear. “Let her rest and when she wakes we’ll explain everything to her. She was too shocked to handle this reality.”

  Gora knew Hitbear was right, but she was still pissed at him. “Tubman was just scared and confused about what was happening to her, what was happening around her,” thought Gora.

  “Fine,” said Gora. She gently picked up Tubman and brought her to a tiny mattress. “Sleep tight, Tubman. Once you wake we will explain everything to you.”

  Gora placed straps over Tubman to keep her in place, in case she awakened in a frenzy again. She didn’t want to risk another injury to Tubman.

  Gora rubbed Tubman’s soft head and made sure Tubman’s ears were not pinned down. Gora was befuddled as to why Tubman was so erratic and the other two came out of the Beast Machine with a general idea of what was happening to them.

  “Owlbert?” called Gora. “What exactly did you add to the Beast Machine when creating Tubman? Did you follow the same procedures as I did?”

  Owlbert, still awakening from the commotion, yawned, “Vell, I, um, did zee same thing as du, Frau Gora! Except, I maybe didn’t use ein real picture und I put info on zee back? I couldn’t type vell on ein touch screen!”

  “Fuck. She’s already here, so I guess I don’t need real photos for it to work… But, what did you add…” questioned Gora quietly. Her mouth was agape in disbelief.

  “I… I… I… added ein scripture from zee Bible on zee back of her picture,” replied Owlbert. “I am unsure of vich passages I used, but they vere gut passages!”

  “You did what?”

  “He added scripture from the Bible,” said Hitbear. “Didn’t you hear him?”

  “Yes,” replied Gora, growing angrier at Hitbear and Owlbert. Gora gave a slight growl toward Hitbear. Her focus returned to Owlbert, “Why did you do this?”

  “Vell,” began Owlbert, “I read up on Frau Tubman und figured it be best to get all of her wunderbar personality? I read she vas highly religious, Christian specifically!”

  Gora sighed, “Owlbert, I know you’re a genius, or were one before, but you know you shouldn’t mess with a perfected formula! Fuck!”

  “That still doesn’t explain why she went nuts?” asked Hitbear.

  “With the addition of the picture, you get the personality of that person already – but you must add in and adjust certain aspects of the human part without going overboard,” stated Gora. “The Beast Machine is intelligent enough to add the personality to the creation by recognizing the facial features on the picture, so what Owlbert did was he gave her an ‘overdose’ on information. It’s nothing we can’t overcome, but she will be on edge and highly questionable on our motives. She can be convinced to stay on our side, though.”

  “So the extra religious babble had nothing to do with it?”

  “No, I don’t believe so. Owlbert could have written the roster of the 1990 World Series Champions on her picture, or a blueberry muffin recipe, and it would have sent her into a fit of confusion like we just witnessed. Information overload.” Gora glared disappointingly at Owlbert then shook her head.

  Owlbert could feel the shame shooting from Gora’s eyes. Sweat began dripping from his neck down his feathery back. He looked away from Gora and then skittered away back to his books to seek refuge and to find a safe space to sleep.

  “Before you take another rest, Hitbear,” said Gora, “do you have the plans ready for our first mission?”

  “Against the scientist named Doctor Spotila?” replied Hitbear. “Why, yes, it is complete.” He smiled a toothy smile.

  “Wonderful,” replied Gora. She nodded at Hitbear and turned her attention to the injured Tubman.

  Gora ran over back over to Tubman and rubbed her head. Gora began to hum quietly while rubbing Tubman’s furry head.

  “Everything is going to be just fine, my dear,” whispered Gora into Tubman’s ears.

  Tubman’s eyes slowly opened.

  She coughed, “Bullshit.” Tubman began to wriggle and writhe until the straps holding her to the bed became loose.

  Chapter 14

  The Device

  “The first polls show you losing to the republican candidate, sir,” Jeffrey obediently told Chairman Obelis. “But you’re easily ahead of the democratic candidate – appears she is not receiving any support from the DNC. She’s only being helped by a friend and her mother. It’s sad.” Jeffrey wiped his mouth with his black tie, a bad habit of his. “The apathy about politics in Arkansas is staggering… We don’t even have to appoint a lieutenant governor if we don’t want to; for fear that there wouldn’t be enough candidates!”

  “It’s fine. We have plenty of time to worry about polls and apathy,” replied Chairman Obelis as he straightened his tie. “I haven’t even had my first public appearance yet. Once the people of Arkansas get to know me like the gracious people residing in Brazilian favelas know me, they’ll love me.”

  He grasped a cup of coffee and sipped gently. The coffee swished around his mouth. His eyes twitched.

  “What is this shit?” asked Chairman Obelis. He stuck his tongue out and crossed his eyes, eventually spitting into a tissue.

  “I…I’m sorry, Chairman Obelis. Is that not the coffee you wanted?” whimpered Jeffrey. Jeffrey rubbed his arm ashamedly. “Why’s he yelling at me over some measly coffee?” thought Jeffrey.

  “It’s not, but it’s fine Jeffrey. It’s fine. It’s not a big deal, settle down!” Chairman Obelis kept sipping the coffee to try to show Jeffrey things were okay. Jeffrey stopped rubbing his arm but he began scratching vigorously at t
he crown of his head. “Look I’m drinking it – I’m drinking it!” Chairman Obelis hopped slightly in his chair to show Jeffrey he was delighted with the coffee, much like a mother tries to appease her young child during a fit.

  Jeffrey kept scratching vigorously at his head, but now began to shake tremendously, “I do not like letting you down, sir!”

  Chairman Obelis assured Jeffrey, “Jeffrey, if I were truly mad at you, I would tell you. You are one of the few people that I would give a straightforward explanation as to why you angered me. You mean a lot to me and my life’s mission. I apologize for my overreaction.” He rose from his chair and hugged Jeffrey tightly.

  Jeffrey’s shakes and scratching subsided, and he stated, “Thank you, sir.” Jeffrey peered delightfully as Chairman Obelis returned to his chair.

  “Now, what’s the progress on our humanity-changing-device that Doctor Silva is working on?” Chairman Obelis forced himself to drink the dreck that Jeffrey made him; forcing a smile after every disgusting sip.

  “It’s coming along perfectly and Silva has devised a perfect plan to implant it into the workers!”

  “Do tell!” Chairman Obelis smiled and quickly spit some of the coffee back into his cup.

  Jeffrey walked a few feet away from Chairman Obelis and opened a small red faux-leather briefcase resting on a side table, Jeffrey bent over seductively but Chairman Obelis paid no mind. He was more annoyed at the travesty of a briefcase that Jeffery had used than paying attention to the young man’s slutty advances. In the briefcase were two small devices, each device had a special container.

  “This device,” Jeffrey stated as he held up the first device, “is a breakthrough technology for coal miners and humans in general. I’ll preface this device by saying it will be HUGE in China if we choose to market it there; it’ll be a real life saver for many.” He pulled the device out of its plastic casing and held it between his forefinger and thumb. It was no longer than an inch and was opaque. “It is placed in the nasal passage and will ‘filter’ all ‘non-healthy’ products – think air pollution, cigarette smoke – that enter through the nasal cavity. It should effectively end miners dying from Black Lung and any respiratory diseases – our miners at least, sir. Any pollution that enters the mouth, however, still will be detrimental to the human’s body. We have yet to develop a filter device for the mouth that would not suffocate the person.” Jeffrey acted as if he were choking to add to his presentation. “The nose filter device, when our full plan takes effect, will be implemented in all Americans for healthier lung function. It would be surgically inserted into the nasal passage with a recovery time of no more than a week.”