Frankenstein: The Complete 5-Book Collection. Dean Koontz
He wanted her to be alive through this procedure. For some of it, he needed her to be awake and responsive.
IN THE BASEMENT of Mercy, hiding behind a row of file cabinets, Randal Six hears noise from beyond the walls of his world: first, the hollow sound of a door falling shut in another room.
According to what Randal has overheard while seeming to be lost in his autism, only Father enters and leaves through the outer door of this chamber. Now, after a late dinner, as he often does, Father must be returning with the intention of working through the night.
Crouched at the end of the cabinet row, Randal cocks his head and listens intently. After a moment, he hears the electronic tones of the numbers being entered in an electric-lock keypad on the far side of the outer file-room door.
The ten tones that represent numbers – zero through nine – on telephone, security-system, electric-lock, and other keypads are universal. They do not vary from one manufacturer to another.
He learned this from an educational web site maintained by one of the nation’s largest communications companies. Having downloaded these tones in preparation for this odyssey, he has replayed them hundreds of times until he can unfailingly identify any code by the tones that comprise it.
Because the file-room door intervenes, the tones are muffled. If he didn’t have the enhanced hearing of the New Race, Randal might not be able to identify the code: 368284.
A soft burrrrr indicates that the circuit engaging the lock has been broken.
Although the door is not in Randal’s line of sight, the creak of hinges suggests that Father has opened it. Footsteps on vinyl tile reveal that Father has entered the file room.
Out of view of the main aisle, Randal suddenly wonders to what degree, if any, Father’s senses might have been enhanced – and he holds his breath lest the faintest exhalation reveal his presence.
Without hesitation, Father’s footsteps cross the room.
The outer door falls shut behind him, and the burrrrr of the disengaged lock is cut short by the hard snap of the bolt.
The inner door opens, closes, and Father is now gone into the basement corridor where piles of rubble remind him of a bad day here at the bottom of Mercy.
Patience is a virtue that Randal has in spades. He does not move at once from hiding, but waits a few minutes until Father is almost certainly on another floor, far out of hearing.
Vinyl square by vinyl square, he spells himself to the outer door. Here, as on the other side, there is a keypad. He enters the code: 368284.
The electric lock releases. He puts his hand on the door but cannot find the courage to open it.
Beyond, there is no Mercy. All is new and full of bewildering choices.
He delays so long that the electric lock engages once more.
He enters the code in the keypad. The lock releases: burrrrr.
He tells himself to open the door. He cannot.
The lock engages once more.
Trembling, he stands before the door, terrified to go through it, but also terrified to remain on this side.
Into his tortured mind comes the memory of the newspaper photo: Arnie O’Connor, autistic but smiling. Arnie is clearly happier than Randal has ever been or ever will be.
A bitter, caustic sense of injustice floods through Randal. This emotion is so intense that he fears it will dissolve him from the inside out if he does not take action to secure for himself the happiness that Arnie O’Connor enjoys.
The little snot. The hateful little worm, selfishly keeping the secret of happiness. What right does he have to be happy when a child of Father, superior in every way, lives in misery more than Mercy?
Again he enters the code. Burrrrr.
He pushes on the door. It opens.
Randal Six spells himself across the threshold, out of Mercy, into the unknown.
THROUGH THE DOOR, Carson heard scary-movie music. She rang the bell, rang it again before the first series of chimes quite finished echoing through the apartment beyond.
In undershirt, jeans, and stocking feet, Michael answered the door. Tousled hair. Puffy face. Eyes heavy-lidded from the weight of a sleep not fully cast off. He must have dozed in his big green-leatherette recliner.
He looked adorable.
Carson wished he was grungy. Or slovenly. Or geeky. The last thing she wanted to feel toward a partner was physical attraction.
Instead, he looked as cuddly as a teddy bear. Worse, the sight of him filled her with a warm, agreeable feeling consisting largely of affection but not without an element of desire.
Shit.
“It’s just ten o’clock,” she said, pushing past him into the apartment, “and you’re asleep in front of the TV. What’re those orange crumbs on your T-shirt? Cheez Doodles?”
“Exactly,” he said, following her into the living room. “Cheez Doodles. You are a detective.”
“Can I assume you’re sober?”
“Nope. Had two diet root beers.”
He yawned, stretched, rubbed at his eyes with the back of one fist. He looked edible.
Carson tried to derail that train of thought. Indicating the massive green recliner, she said, “That is the ugliest lump of a chair I’ve ever seen. Looks like a fungus scraped out of a latrine in Hell.”
“Yeah, but it’s my fungus from Hell, and I love it.”
Pointing to the TV, she said, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers?”
“The first remake.”
“You’ve seen it like what – ten times?”
“Probably twelve.”
“When it comes to glamour,” she said, “you’re the Cary Grant of your generation.”
He grinned at her. She knew why. Her curmudgeonly attitude did not fool him. He sensed the effect that he had on her.
Turning away from him as she felt her face flush, Carson picked up the remote control and switched off the TV. “The case is breaking. We’ve gotta move.”
“Breaking how?”
“Guy jumped off a roof, smashed himself into alley jam, leaving a freezer full of body parts. They say he’s the Surgeon. Maybe he is – but he didn’t kill them all.”
Sitting on the edge of the recliner, tying his shoes, Michael said, “What – he’s got a kill buddy or a copycat?”
“Yeah. One or the other. We dismissed that idea too easily.”
“I’ll grab a clean shirt and a jacket,” he said.
“Maybe change the Cheez Doodle T while you’re at it,” she said.
“Absolutely. I wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of some criminal scum,” he said, and stripped off the T-shirt as he left the room.
He knew exactly what he was doing: giving her a look. She took it. Good shoulders, nice abs.