Phoning it in wasn’t going to be enough. Lester felt he needed to make the trip to Johns Hopkins to visit his friend—to be by his side. Chicago to Baltimore wouldn’t be too painful in the newly upgraded Nova. Lester had swapped out the old V8 with a cutting edge gas-electric hybrid drive system at the company’s expense. The car now actually had a faster 0-60 time, but the whir of the electric motor was unacceptable to Lester. So he had the tech guys install a sound system in the engine compartment that mimicked the roar of his old V8 when he floored the pedal.
Around a year had passed since the events at Lake Cumberland transpired, and they seemed like a far more distant memory to Lester. Harry, on the other hand, had endured a constant reminder almost every day that was grievous yet surprisingly joyful at the same time. Lester had enveloped himself in his work taking almost no time off after debriefing. Harry had hung it up—he was on indefinite leave.
When Lester finally arrived at the hospital, Harry’s face said it all. There was a glow of peace and relief framed by a shadow of sorrow with just a little hint of happiness brought about from seeing Lester after such a long while.
“You just missed her, Lester.”
Lester bear hugged his old partner.
“I’m so sorry, old friend. How did you know? I mean, how did you both know when it would happen?”
“We just sort of knew. I don’t know how else to explain it. It was like she was ready to move on, and I was ready to let her go. Everything was reconciled. Nothing was hanging out there.”
“She really held on. I thought she had a chance”
“You know, as evil and maniacal as Dolph Hauser was, his organization was light years ahead on the biotech curve. I think if Angie had ended up at any other hospital, there’s no way she would have lasted more than a day or two. It took a long time to bring her back mentally. He really fried her brain back there. But little by little, the Angie I knew came back together, at least in the mind. She kicked my ass at chess a few times. She’d smile at my jokes if they were funny. She’d frown if they weren’t.”
“She was a strong girl.”
“She never really had a family when she was growing up—foster home to foster home—ward of the state. When the agency picked her up, she was easily indoctrinated. Dolph was able to win her over. She was just looking for a family. Anywhere. Anyone. She just never really knew what a real one was supposed to be like.”
“Well, she’s lucky she had you.”
“It’s silly. She wanted to get married. So we had this little ceremony planned. We got the paper work all taken care of. I wanted her to wait to give you time to make it. You are my best man of course. But she knew. So we did it last night. The preacher came to her room. I got her a little veil to go with her respirator.”
Harry fought hard to hold back his emotion.
“She was just so happy.”
“I’m sorry I missed it. It sounded beautiful.”
“We got some pictures.”
Lester wished there was more he could do for his friend.
“How are you doing? Are you hungry? What can I get you?”
“I guess I can eat.”
“Well, let’s get you fed. I’m a little hungry myself.”
A few blocks away, Lester and Harry waited for their pizza. Being with Harry triggered Lester’s memory. A flood of questions rushed back into Lester’s head about what happened in Lake Cumberland. He and Harry didn’t really dig too deep right after it happened since Harry became preoccupied with Angie. For one big question, Lester really wanted an answer.
“One thing I never got, Turquoise, is how you just sort of walked away. I mean, you literally walked right by the man who tortured you and was indirectly responsible for the death of your girlfriend. You walked by the man who captured you, who drove the bus that flipped over and fucked up Angie. If there’s anything I’ve learned about Harry Turquoise in the time I’ve known you, it’s that Harry don’t take shit. I’d have been 99.9 percent sure you would have destroyed both those men with your bare hands.”
“It sounds weird, but when I was in that cocoon, it changed me. I had resigned myself to take up permanent watch at the gate. I didn’t know how I was going to do it exactly, but I knew my body had to die. I was ready to die. Ru ultimately took that burden off my shoulders. And seeing my grandmother, remembering all her lessons, it inspired me. The hate was gone. All I had left was love, and I just wanted to get to Angie one last time. You were all there with me—I felt free. Once I knew I could survive, all I could think about was Angie. I couldn’t focus on anything else.”
“I thought you’d say something about your weakened physical state, but then again, it’s not like you to use that as an excuse.”
“I was pretty wrecked, but, yeah, that’s not what held me back.”
”Well, going at Dolph would’ve been suicide anyway. You did tell me about that Bronco psycho dude while we were shackled up, so I knew what to do the next time I met him, which didn’t take long. And Brother Dave was amazing. He busts out with the first verse of that Metallica song. I never knew he could sing.”
“Yeah. It was ‘One’.”
“Little Bronco dude was just mesmerized.”
“And then you killed him.”
“He must have thought Dave was his new best friend. I walked right up to him and crushed his windpipe.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“That little dude was too dangerous. And it didn’t look like you were in vengeful mood. I had a feeling he wouldn’t be the type of guy to show up for a court date.”
The pizza finally arrived. When the waiter left, Harry and Lester continued their conversation.
“So, Lester, tell me about your new partner.”
“If you told me when I met this girl that she would some day be my partner, I’d have laughed my ass off. But she was born to do this work I tell you. She’s no Harry Turquoise, but she does all right. She’s diligent like you. She’s actually a little colder than you—a little more mechanical.”
“I guess it’s just not safe to set ‘em free.”
“Well, the agency felt it necessary to keep close tabs on all potential extra-dimensional being hosts. What better way than to get ‘em working for us. Dave’s doing some good work as an analyst. But Pam is really good in the field. It’s scary. She has no recollection of anything that happened after the lightning strike at the studio, but it seems to me like Hrel rubbed off on her while he was in there. It’s like he checks in every once in while. I catch little things she does that remind me of Mr. Face.”
“In what way?”
“Just the way she moves sometimes. Mr. Face had this real fluidity to his actions.”
“I’m glad to hear they’re settling in. It doesn’t seem like they’ve had a lot of time. How are you dealing with their anti-establishment roots?”
“Well, Dave was easy. After the whole ordeal, he really wanted to pitch in and do his part to ‘save the world’. I think Vros really got him to see the big picture. That’s what I get from talking to him. With Dave on board, Pam fell right into place. Plus, you know, they’re dying to find out which of their conspiracy theories are legit. I answer about ten conspiracy theory questions a day from Pam. Sometimes I tell her the truth, and sometimes I don’t. Then there’s this little tension between Dave and Pam about what happened exactly to Pam’s old girlfriend, Missy.
“Really?”
“Well, Missy is still dead. It didn’t take long for Pam to start asking where Missy was once she realized she had lost a few weeks of her memory. She’s not liking the explanations we’ve been giving her.”
“You’re not telling her the truth?”
“We bend it a little.”
“How’s Dave’s mom?”
“Man, you turned the tables on me. I was going to ask you a bunch of questions.”
“Sorry. I know how you like to talk. I’ll ease up.”
“Okay. I’m supposed to do some field audits of all the old Hauser facilities. DARPA about did a back flip when we dropped these multibillion dollar research caverns into their laps. We just need to make sure no one is trying to start up any inter-dimensional portal projects. Pam is going to be in training for a while. I wanted to see if you were interested in tagging along with me. It’d be like old times. Plus you’d get to see some of the latest gadgets coming down the military-industrial pipeline. Oh yeah. Agnes is doing all right. She moved back to her hometown in Virginia. Dave talks to her every day now.”
“Yeah. I’ll go with you.”
Harry was a little disappointed to see the casino had been transformed into office space. Instead of callipygian concubines, there were gravely dressed accountants and engineers. Protection money in the form of American tax dollars rather than the black market funded the current operation. Harry was officially still with the agency and maintained his security clearances, but the looks he got from some of the uniforms in the halls weren’t very welcoming.
“You’re special, Harry. People don’t like the special guy.”
“I’m not here to impress anyone. I just want to make sure no one is cooking up a portal to hell.”
Harry and Lester traversed through the honeycombed lair escorted by their uniformed minders until they finally reached the portal room. Harry definitely wasn’t the type to succumb to post-traumatic stress disorder, but the site of the room and its immediate surroundings were oppressive. The two men entered the room. There was nothing. There was no gate, no cocoon, and no equipment whatsoever. Even the power sockets had been sealed up. The waters of Lake Cumberland danced through the large windows to bath the room in glowing green light.
Lester turned back to the minders and said, “This isn’t enough of course. We’ll still need to see your inventory.”
Harry was transported back to the day he left Dolph’s fortress.
“How different it would be if Claude never woke up,” Harry posited.
“Claude was definitely the atomic bomb Dolph never saw coming.”
No one knew exactly what went down in the portal room between Claude and Dolph. After expending every round of ammunition to destroy the infernal gateway, the team was left at a disadvantage when Dolph’s machine gun showed up. Lester foresaw a prolonged battle. It was Dolph’s nature to release his adversaries so he could take the time to rebuild his creation. He had redundant locations to pick up where another one left off. Were his adversaries to return, Dolph would have greeted them with a new demonic army. A wrong move and they all would have been filled with bullet holes with no hope of stopping Dolph. So the team took advantage of Dolph’s mercy and left the room quietly—all of them. That is except for Claude—unconscious and too massive to move.
Where Harry’s transformation left him full of love, Claude’s experience left him feeling quite the opposite. Here a man of faith found himself completely removed from the light he originally perceived. It didn’t just happen when he was tortured into submission. It built up over time as he watched his beloved son lose touch with the world in which he lived. His marriage strained as he and Agnes struggled to find a way to deal with their troubled child. His congregation, hearing sermon after sermon, continued in their hypocritical ways. Claude found himself leaning on Jesus more and more. The only thing Jesus seemed to be able to do was change Claude’s perspective of the matter. Claude did the best he could, and nothing seemed to change. Now Claude was in a moment where he could make a difference. As he regained consciousness and confirmed the shape of his body, his eyes found the man responsible. Within moments Claude burst away to conceal himself behind a large pillar. Then he heard Dolph’s voice again.
“Claude, dear Claude, where have you run off to now? Your friends and family have left you here. I want to help you.”
Claude stepped out from behind the pillar to face the contemptible man.
“What do think of the new body, Claude? You could save a lot of souls in a body like that.”
“It’s unnatural. It’s not right.”
“Human beings get stronger and faster every day, Claude. You’ve just skipped a few steps along the way.”
“I’ll be shunned as a freak.”
“You’ll be celebrated as a freak.”
“There is no difference.”
“This is depressing talk, Claude. We need to find a way to get you happy.”
“You won’t like what that is.”
“Come on, Claude. What is it? And I hope it doesn’t contradict anything in the Good Book.”
“You die.”
“Now wait a minute. Thou shalt not kill. Turn the other cheek. You seem to be forgetting some basic tenets of your faith, Claude. Besides, I’ve got a gun. And your friends and family won’t fare too well if I don’t leave this room in one piece.”
“I cannot live like this. And you cannot live.”
“Then cut the bullshit, Claude, and do it already.”
Claude bolted out of sight. Dolph waited. The preacher he dragged in days ago wasn’t capable of killing. Dolph turned to leave the room and found himself face to face with the hulking abomination whose creation he facilitated. Claude’s claws sunk deep into Dolph’s abdomen in rapid succession. The gun slipped out of Dolph’s hand as his bowels slipped out of his body. Claude watched with glee as Dolph painfully spewed blood from his mouth. There would be no coup de grâce. As Dolph slowly and agonizingly expired, Claude picked up the dropped machine gun.
“Agnes, David, I love you. Please forgive me.”
It was close to five seconds before Claude’s trigger finger relaxed after filling his head full of bullets. The giant collapsed to be discovered hours later by an elite FBI task force.
Lester and Harry were about to leave the portal room when Lester stopped and looked at Harry.
“Claude Bullock. Victim or hero?”
Harry didn’t answer. He continued walking toward the minders. He really wanted to get back to the administrator they chatted with earlier to see if he was able to dig up the original shipping documents Harry and Lester requested.
Around a year had passed since the events at Lake Cumberland transpired, and they seemed like a far more distant memory to Lester. Harry, on the other hand, had endured a constant reminder almost every day that was grievous yet surprisingly joyful at the same time. Lester had enveloped himself in his work taking almost no time off after debriefing. Harry had hung it up—he was on indefinite leave.
When Lester finally arrived at the hospital, Harry’s face said it all. There was a glow of peace and relief framed by a shadow of sorrow with just a little hint of happiness brought about from seeing Lester after such a long while.
“You just missed her, Lester.”
Lester bear hugged his old partner.
“I’m so sorry, old friend. How did you know? I mean, how did you both know when it would happen?”
“We just sort of knew. I don’t know how else to explain it. It was like she was ready to move on, and I was ready to let her go. Everything was reconciled. Nothing was hanging out there.”
“She really held on. I thought she had a chance”
“You know, as evil and maniacal as Dolph Hauser was, his organization was light years ahead on the biotech curve. I think if Angie had ended up at any other hospital, there’s no way she would have lasted more than a day or two. It took a long time to bring her back mentally. He really fried her brain back there. But little by little, the Angie I knew came back together, at least in the mind. She kicked my ass at chess a few times. She’d smile at my jokes if they were funny. She’d frown if they weren’t.”
“She was a strong girl.”
“She never really had a family when she was growing up—foster home to foster home—ward of the state. When the agency picked her up, she was easily indoctrinated. Dolph was able to win her over. She was just looking for a family. Anywhere. Anyone. She just never really knew what a real one was supposed to be like.”
“Well, she’s lucky she had you.”
“It’s silly. She wanted to get married. So we had this little ceremony planned. We got the paper work all taken care of. I wanted her to wait to give you time to make it. You are my best man of course. But she knew. So we did it last night. The preacher came to her room. I got her a little veil to go with her respirator.”
Harry fought hard to hold back his emotion.
“She was just so happy.”
“I’m sorry I missed it. It sounded beautiful.”
“We got some pictures.”
Lester wished there was more he could do for his friend.
“How are you doing? Are you hungry? What can I get you?”
“I guess I can eat.”
“Well, let’s get you fed. I’m a little hungry myself.”
A few blocks away, Lester and Harry waited for their pizza. Being with Harry triggered Lester’s memory. A flood of questions rushed back into Lester’s head about what happened in Lake Cumberland. He and Harry didn’t really dig too deep right after it happened since Harry became preoccupied with Angie. For one big question, Lester really wanted an answer.
“One thing I never got, Turquoise, is how you just sort of walked away. I mean, you literally walked right by the man who tortured you and was indirectly responsible for the death of your girlfriend. You walked by the man who captured you, who drove the bus that flipped over and fucked up Angie. If there’s anything I’ve learned about Harry Turquoise in the time I’ve known you, it’s that Harry don’t take shit. I’d have been 99.9 percent sure you would have destroyed both those men with your bare hands.”
“It sounds weird, but when I was in that cocoon, it changed me. I had resigned myself to take up permanent watch at the gate. I didn’t know how I was going to do it exactly, but I knew my body had to die. I was ready to die. Ru ultimately took that burden off my shoulders. And seeing my grandmother, remembering all her lessons, it inspired me. The hate was gone. All I had left was love, and I just wanted to get to Angie one last time. You were all there with me—I felt free. Once I knew I could survive, all I could think about was Angie. I couldn’t focus on anything else.”
“I thought you’d say something about your weakened physical state, but then again, it’s not like you to use that as an excuse.”
“I was pretty wrecked, but, yeah, that’s not what held me back.”
”Well, going at Dolph would’ve been suicide anyway. You did tell me about that Bronco psycho dude while we were shackled up, so I knew what to do the next time I met him, which didn’t take long. And Brother Dave was amazing. He busts out with the first verse of that Metallica song. I never knew he could sing.”
“Yeah. It was ‘One’.”
“Little Bronco dude was just mesmerized.”
“And then you killed him.”
“He must have thought Dave was his new best friend. I walked right up to him and crushed his windpipe.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“That little dude was too dangerous. And it didn’t look like you were in vengeful mood. I had a feeling he wouldn’t be the type of guy to show up for a court date.”
The pizza finally arrived. When the waiter left, Harry and Lester continued their conversation.
“So, Lester, tell me about your new partner.”
“If you told me when I met this girl that she would some day be my partner, I’d have laughed my ass off. But she was born to do this work I tell you. She’s no Harry Turquoise, but she does all right. She’s diligent like you. She’s actually a little colder than you—a little more mechanical.”
“I guess it’s just not safe to set ‘em free.”
“Well, the agency felt it necessary to keep close tabs on all potential extra-dimensional being hosts. What better way than to get ‘em working for us. Dave’s doing some good work as an analyst. But Pam is really good in the field. It’s scary. She has no recollection of anything that happened after the lightning strike at the studio, but it seems to me like Hrel rubbed off on her while he was in there. It’s like he checks in every once in while. I catch little things she does that remind me of Mr. Face.”
“In what way?”
“Just the way she moves sometimes. Mr. Face had this real fluidity to his actions.”
“I’m glad to hear they’re settling in. It doesn’t seem like they’ve had a lot of time. How are you dealing with their anti-establishment roots?”
“Well, Dave was easy. After the whole ordeal, he really wanted to pitch in and do his part to ‘save the world’. I think Vros really got him to see the big picture. That’s what I get from talking to him. With Dave on board, Pam fell right into place. Plus, you know, they’re dying to find out which of their conspiracy theories are legit. I answer about ten conspiracy theory questions a day from Pam. Sometimes I tell her the truth, and sometimes I don’t. Then there’s this little tension between Dave and Pam about what happened exactly to Pam’s old girlfriend, Missy.
“Really?”
“Well, Missy is still dead. It didn’t take long for Pam to start asking where Missy was once she realized she had lost a few weeks of her memory. She’s not liking the explanations we’ve been giving her.”
“You’re not telling her the truth?”
“We bend it a little.”
“How’s Dave’s mom?”
“Man, you turned the tables on me. I was going to ask you a bunch of questions.”
“Sorry. I know how you like to talk. I’ll ease up.”
“Okay. I’m supposed to do some field audits of all the old Hauser facilities. DARPA about did a back flip when we dropped these multibillion dollar research caverns into their laps. We just need to make sure no one is trying to start up any inter-dimensional portal projects. Pam is going to be in training for a while. I wanted to see if you were interested in tagging along with me. It’d be like old times. Plus you’d get to see some of the latest gadgets coming down the military-industrial pipeline. Oh yeah. Agnes is doing all right. She moved back to her hometown in Virginia. Dave talks to her every day now.”
“Yeah. I’ll go with you.”
---
Harry was a little disappointed to see the casino had been transformed into office space. Instead of callipygian concubines, there were gravely dressed accountants and engineers. Protection money in the form of American tax dollars rather than the black market funded the current operation. Harry was officially still with the agency and maintained his security clearances, but the looks he got from some of the uniforms in the halls weren’t very welcoming.
“You’re special, Harry. People don’t like the special guy.”
“I’m not here to impress anyone. I just want to make sure no one is cooking up a portal to hell.”
Harry and Lester traversed through the honeycombed lair escorted by their uniformed minders until they finally reached the portal room. Harry definitely wasn’t the type to succumb to post-traumatic stress disorder, but the site of the room and its immediate surroundings were oppressive. The two men entered the room. There was nothing. There was no gate, no cocoon, and no equipment whatsoever. Even the power sockets had been sealed up. The waters of Lake Cumberland danced through the large windows to bath the room in glowing green light.
Lester turned back to the minders and said, “This isn’t enough of course. We’ll still need to see your inventory.”
Harry was transported back to the day he left Dolph’s fortress.
“How different it would be if Claude never woke up,” Harry posited.
“Claude was definitely the atomic bomb Dolph never saw coming.”
No one knew exactly what went down in the portal room between Claude and Dolph. After expending every round of ammunition to destroy the infernal gateway, the team was left at a disadvantage when Dolph’s machine gun showed up. Lester foresaw a prolonged battle. It was Dolph’s nature to release his adversaries so he could take the time to rebuild his creation. He had redundant locations to pick up where another one left off. Were his adversaries to return, Dolph would have greeted them with a new demonic army. A wrong move and they all would have been filled with bullet holes with no hope of stopping Dolph. So the team took advantage of Dolph’s mercy and left the room quietly—all of them. That is except for Claude—unconscious and too massive to move.
Where Harry’s transformation left him full of love, Claude’s experience left him feeling quite the opposite. Here a man of faith found himself completely removed from the light he originally perceived. It didn’t just happen when he was tortured into submission. It built up over time as he watched his beloved son lose touch with the world in which he lived. His marriage strained as he and Agnes struggled to find a way to deal with their troubled child. His congregation, hearing sermon after sermon, continued in their hypocritical ways. Claude found himself leaning on Jesus more and more. The only thing Jesus seemed to be able to do was change Claude’s perspective of the matter. Claude did the best he could, and nothing seemed to change. Now Claude was in a moment where he could make a difference. As he regained consciousness and confirmed the shape of his body, his eyes found the man responsible. Within moments Claude burst away to conceal himself behind a large pillar. Then he heard Dolph’s voice again.
“Claude, dear Claude, where have you run off to now? Your friends and family have left you here. I want to help you.”
Claude stepped out from behind the pillar to face the contemptible man.
“What do think of the new body, Claude? You could save a lot of souls in a body like that.”
“It’s unnatural. It’s not right.”
“Human beings get stronger and faster every day, Claude. You’ve just skipped a few steps along the way.”
“I’ll be shunned as a freak.”
“You’ll be celebrated as a freak.”
“There is no difference.”
“This is depressing talk, Claude. We need to find a way to get you happy.”
“You won’t like what that is.”
“Come on, Claude. What is it? And I hope it doesn’t contradict anything in the Good Book.”
“You die.”
“Now wait a minute. Thou shalt not kill. Turn the other cheek. You seem to be forgetting some basic tenets of your faith, Claude. Besides, I’ve got a gun. And your friends and family won’t fare too well if I don’t leave this room in one piece.”
“I cannot live like this. And you cannot live.”
“Then cut the bullshit, Claude, and do it already.”
Claude bolted out of sight. Dolph waited. The preacher he dragged in days ago wasn’t capable of killing. Dolph turned to leave the room and found himself face to face with the hulking abomination whose creation he facilitated. Claude’s claws sunk deep into Dolph’s abdomen in rapid succession. The gun slipped out of Dolph’s hand as his bowels slipped out of his body. Claude watched with glee as Dolph painfully spewed blood from his mouth. There would be no coup de grâce. As Dolph slowly and agonizingly expired, Claude picked up the dropped machine gun.
“Agnes, David, I love you. Please forgive me.”
It was close to five seconds before Claude’s trigger finger relaxed after filling his head full of bullets. The giant collapsed to be discovered hours later by an elite FBI task force.
Lester and Harry were about to leave the portal room when Lester stopped and looked at Harry.
“Claude Bullock. Victim or hero?”
Harry didn’t answer. He continued walking toward the minders. He really wanted to get back to the administrator they chatted with earlier to see if he was able to dig up the original shipping documents Harry and Lester requested.
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